IN SILENCE

She sees our faces bright and gay,

Our moving lips, our laughing eyes,

But scarce a word of what we say

Can pass the zone that round her lies;—

A zone of stillness,— strange, profound,

Invisible to mortal eye,

Upon whose verge the waves of sound

In muffled murmurs break and die.

Across that silent void she strains

To catch at least some wingèd word,

And, though she fails, still smiles and feigns

The poor pretence of having heard.

That smile! Its pathos wrings the heart

Of many a friend, who yet conceals

The tears that from his eyelids start,

The grief and pity that he feels.

And she, aware of our distress,

And sadly conscious of her own,

Still bravely speaks, nor dares confess

That our real meaning is unknown.

What rapture, when the closing door

Shuts out the world and gives release,

And on her quivering nerves once more

Descends the benison of peace!

No longer forced to dimly read

Men's meanings from their lips and looks,

Her greatest joy, her only need

The sweet companionship of books!

Do we thus ever fully know

The boon of leaving far behind

The world's dull tales of crime and woe,

The gossip of its vacant mind?

What if her loss be really gain,

That zone of silence a defence,

A compensation for her pain,

A quickening of her psychic sense?

Perhaps when fall at last away

The chains which bind her spirit here,

A voice divine will gently say

In tones which reach alone her ear,—

“While others in that world of sin

Heard evil things, to thee unknown,

Apart from that defiling din

Thy spirit grew, in strength, alone.

“They must through other lives return

To slowly earn thy strength of soul;

Through suffering only couldst thou learn

The virtue that hath made thee whole.”