WHY art thou silent! Is thy love a plant Of such weak fibre that the treacherous air Of absence withers what was once so fair? Is there no debt to pay, no boon to grant? Yet have my thoughts for thee been vigilant -- Bound to thy service with unceasing care, The mind's least generous wish a mendicant For nought but what thy happiness could spare. Speak -- though this soft warm heart, once free to hold A thousand tender pleasures, thine and mine, Be left more desolate, more dreary cold Than a forsaken bird's-nest filled with snow 'Mid its own bush of leafless eglantine -- Speak, that my torturing doubts their end may know! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...TO A DEAD MAN by CARL SANDBURG BALLADE AGAINST THE ENEMIES OF FRANCE by FRANCOIS VILLON TEARS IN SLEEP by LOUISE BOGAN BURIAL OF MOSES by CECIL FRANCES ALEXANDER A BOOK OF AIRS: SONG 19. THE FAIRY QUEEN PROSERPINA by THOMAS CAMPION MEADOW-SAFFRON by GUILLAUME APOLLINAIRE |