The sweeping desert, yellow, bare and mute,
Seems deader for a wheeling vulture’s scream.
The single quaver of a lonely lute
But makes the night seem nearer to a dream.
The sea is silent far from shores unseen,
Save where a ripple tumbles to abyss;
As whitened water makes the green more green,
The day is calmer for the bubble’s hiss.
From such as these I learn the forest’s charm—
’Tis not its silence, silent though it be;