The Heights of Silence

By Leigh Gordon Giltner

Above the valleys, peopled, fair and warm,

Rise the bleak, silent uplands where abide

Wraiths of lost loves, love's recompense denied,

Unspoken, unconfessed, unsatisfied....

Cold, silent heights, engirt with zones of storm,

Where Love for aye unmated must abide.

The broad, sweet downward vistas of the flesh

Stretch fair and far; the calm white spirit-height

Is lone and chill; there dimly shines the light

Of sun and star that burns and beacons bright

Where Sin spreads still her guiling, glitt'ring mesh.

Ah, warm the valley! Lone and chill the height!

Yet he who wins the height's sublimity —

The silent height where loves unlived abide,

Loves stainless, sublimated, purified —

Shall glimpse that land, to grosser view denied,

Where love and longing infinite shall be

Or ever stilled — or ever satisfied.