Explore "The Three Silences of Molinos" by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
To John Greenleaf Whittier
Three Silences there are: the first of speech, / The second of desire, the third of thought; / This is the lore a Spanish monk, distraught / With dreams and visions, was the first to teach. / These Silences, commingling each with each, / Made up the perfect Silence, that he sought / And prayed for, and wherein at times he caught / Mysterious sounds from realms beyond our reach. / O thou, whose daily life anticipates / The life to come, and in whose thought and word / The spiritual world preponderates. / Hermit of Amesbury! thou too hast heard / Voices and melodies from beyond the gates, / And speakest only when thy soul is stirred!