Let no tears fall
If then they fell not.
If eyes told nothing,
Now let them tell not.
Once there was time
For words, looks and tears:
That time is past, is past—
Heart, thou shalt tell not!
Beyond any speech
Is silence bitter,
As between love and love
Nothing is sweeter.
Once there was time, time yet
For words, looks and tears ...
Past, past, past, past—
Nothing so bitter!
Now if tears come
That then fell never;
If eyes such sad, sad things
Look now for ever;
If words, looks or tears
Tremble with telling,
Oh, what returning voice is it whispers
Never, never, never!
SCATTER THE SILVER ASH LIKE SNOW
O, what insect is it
That burrows in the heart and frets
The heart's near nerves,
Leaving its unclean
Stigmata in the mind serene,
Making the proud how mean?
It is not common hate,
Anger has not such deadly cunning
To annul, to chill.
Wild anger is not
So cunning even while so hot;
Hate is too soon forgot.
There is no sword so sharp
With lightnings as the wanton tongue;
Nothing that burns like words—
Bubbling flames that spread
In the now unspiritual head,
By sleepless fevers fed.
O evil words that are
The knives of desolating thought!
And though words be still
The hot eyes yet dart
Burning deaths from this mad heart
Into that torn heart.