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A continuing selection of classic and contemporary poems.

Golden Silences

Christina Rossetti

There is silence that saith, “Ah me!”
  There is silence that nothing saith;
    One the silence of life forlorn,
  One the silence of death;
One is, and the other shall be.

One we know and have known for long,
  One we know not, but we shall know,
    All we who have ever been born;
  Even so, be it so,—
There is silence, despite a song.

Sowing day is a silent day,
  Resting night is a silent night;
    But whoso reaps the ripened corn
  Shall shout in his delight,
While silences vanish away.
Online text © 1998-2008 Poetry X. All rights reserved.
From Poems | Little, Brown, and Company, 1906
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