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| In the Cage |
91 |
|
| Saving a Woman: One Phase |
95 |
| Love is a Madness |
97 |
| On a Bust |
98 |
| Arabel |
101 |
| Jim and Arabel's Sister |
108 |
| The Sorrow of Dead Faces |
116 |
| The Cry |
119 |
| The Helping Hand |
120 |
| The Door |
121 |
| Supplication |
122 |
| The Conversation |
125 |
| Terminus |
130 |
| Madeline |
132 |
| Marcia |
134 |
| The Altar |
135 |
| Soul's Desire |
137 |
| Ballad of Launcelot and Elaine |
140 |
| The Death of Launcelot |
149 |
| In Michigan |
156 |
| The Star |
166 |
SONGS AND SATIRES
SONGS AND SATIRES
SILENCE
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 for which music alone finds the word,
And the silence of the woods before the winds of spring begin,
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 a deep peace of mind,
And the silence of an embittered friendship.
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.
And the silence of the gods who understand each other without speech.
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.
There is the silence between father and son,
When the father cannot explain his life,
Even though he be misunderstood for it.
There is the silence that comes between husband and wife.
There is the silence of those who have failed;
And the vast silence that covers
Broken nations and vanquished
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