Part 37 (1/2)

Sure if it's done forever, better for me that's wise, Never the hurt, and never tears in my aching eyes, No more the trouble ever to hide from my asking folk Beat of my heart at click o' the latch, and throb if his name is spoke; Never the need to hide the sighs and the flus.h.i.+ng thoughts and the fret, And after awhile my heart will hush and my hungering hands forget . . .

Peace on my ways, and peace in my step, and maybe my heart grown light -- (~Mary, helper of heartbreak, send him to me to-night!~)

Nirvana. [John Hall Wheelock]

Sleep on -- I lie at heaven's high oriels, Over the stars that murmur as they go Lighting your lattice-window far below; And every star some of the glory spells Whereof I know.

I have forgotten you, long long ago; Like the sweet, silver singing of thin bells Vanished, or music fading faint and low.

Sleep on -- I lie at heaven's high oriels, Who loved you so.

A Nun. [Odell Shepard]

One glance and I had lost her in the riot Of tangled cries.

She trod the clamor with a cloistral quiet Deep in her eyes As though she heard the muted music only That silence makes Among dim mountain summits and on lonely Deserted lakes.

There is some broken song her heart remembers From long ago, Some love lies buried deep, some pa.s.sion's embers Smothered in snow, Far voices of a joy that sought and missed her Fail now, and cease . . .

And this has given the deep eyes of G.o.d's sister Their dreadful peace.

Silence. [Edgar Lee Masters]

I have known the silence of the stars and of the sea, And the silence of the city when it pauses, And the silence of a man and a maid, And the silence of the sick When their eyes roam about the room.

And I ask: For the depths, Of what use is language?

A beast of the field moans a few times When death takes its young.

And we are voiceless in the presence of realities -- We cannot speak.

A curious boy asks an old soldier Sitting in front of the grocery store, ”How did you lose your leg?”

And the old soldier is struck with silence, Or his mind flies away Because he cannot concentrate it on Gettysburg.

It comes back jocosely And he says, ”A bear bit it off.”

And the boy wonders, while the old soldier Dumbly, feebly lives over The flashes of guns, the thunder of cannon, The shrieks of the slain, And himself lying on the ground, And the hospital surgeons, the knives, And the long days in bed.

But if he could describe it all He would be an artist.

But if he were an artist there would be deeper wounds Which he could not describe.

There is the silence of a great hatred, And the silence of a great love, And the silence of an embittered friends.h.i.+p.

There is the silence of a spiritual crisis, Through which your soul, exquisitely tortured, Comes with visions not to be uttered Into a realm of higher life.

There is the silence of defeat.

There is the silence of those unjustly punished; And the silence of the dying whose hand Suddenly grips yours.