Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE SILENCE OF LOVE, by HAMILTON DRUMMOND


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE SILENCE OF LOVE, by                    
First Line: I hold that we are wrong to seek
Last Line: Beyond the common line of men.
Subject(s): Love; Silence


I HOLD that we are wrong to seek
To put in words our deepest thought;
The purer things by Nature taught
Are turned to coarser when we speak.
The flower whose perfume charms the sense
Grows hard and common to the touch,
And love that's wordy overmuch
Is marred by its experience;
For love, like sympathy, hath bands
More strong in silence than in speech,
And hearts speak loudest, each to each,
Through meeting lips and clasp of hands.
Nor could I hope for fitting word
To form in speech the thoughts that start;
The inner core of every heart
Hath yearnings that are never heard.

They are too subtile, and transcend
The power of words to speak them right;
We therefore shut them out of sight,
To burn in silence to the end.
Yet even as the Magi held
Their sun as sacred, so I hold
My love is holy, sacred-souled,
And pure as sacred fire of eld.
Nor dare I stain with word or pen
This inner purer love to thee
Whose higher nature raiseth me
Beyond the common line of men.





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