Explore "The Speech of Silence" by Ella Wheeler Wilcox on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
The solemn Sea of Silence lies between us; / I know thou livest, and them lovest me, / And yet I wish some white ship would come sailing / Across the ocean, beating word from thee.
The dead calm awes me with its awful stillness. / No anxious doubts or fears disturb my breast; / I only ask some little wave of language, / To stir this vast infinitude of rest.
I am oppressed with this great sense of loving; / So much I give, so much receive from thee; / Like subtle incense, rising from a censer, / So floats the fragrance of thy love round me.
All speech is poor, and written words unmeaning; / Yet such I ask, blown hither by some wind, / To give relief to this too perfect knowledge, / The Silence so impresses on my mind.
How poor the love that needeth word or message, / To banish doubt or nourish tenderness! / I ask them but to temper love's convictions / The Silence all too fully doth express.
Too deep the language which the spirit utters; / Too vast the knowledge which my soul hath stirred. / Send some white ship across the Sea of Silence, / And interrupt its utterance with a word.