C.D. Warner, et al., comp. The Library of the World’s Best Literature.
An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.
The Golden Silence
By William Winter (18361917)
W
What though I speak no other word?
Is silence shame? Is patience wrong?
At least one song of mine was heard:
One ocean murmur, glad and free,
One sign that nothing grand or fair
In all this world was lost to me.
I will not strain the chords of thought:
The sweetest fruit of all desire
Comes its own way, and comes unsought.
And all their music passed away,
What Nature wishes should be said
She’ll find the rightful voice to say!
The drifting cloud, the lonely sky;
And all we know of bliss or grief
She speaks, in forms that cannot die.
The silent stars, the pathless sea,
Are living signs of all we are,
And types of all we hope to be.