Silence A Sonnet

Peace my hearts blab, be ever dumb,

Sorrowes speak loud without a tongue:

And my perplexed thoughts forbear

To breath your selves in any ear:

Tis scarce a true or manly grief

Which gaddes abroad to find relief.

Was ever stomack that lackt meat

Nourisht by what another eat?

Can I bestow it, or will woe

Forsake me when I bid it goe?

Then Ile believe a wounded breast

May heal by shrift, and purchase rest.

But if imparting it I do

Not ease my self, but trouble two,

'Tis better I alone possess

My treasure of unhappiness:

Engrossing that which is my own

No longer then it is unknown.

If silence be a kind of death,

He kindles grief who gives it breath;

But let it rak't in embers lye,

On thine own hearth 'twill quickly dye;

And spight of fate, that very wombe

Which carries it, shall prove its tombe.