Poem by Henry Timrod

Why Silent?

     Why am I silent from year to year?
      Needs must I sing on these blue March days?
     What will you say, when I tell you here,
      That already, I think, for a little praise,
             I have paid too dear?

     For, I know not why, when I tell my thought,
      It seems as though I fling it away;
     And the charm wherewith a fancy is fraught,
      When secret, dies with the fleeting lay
             Into which it is wrought.

     So my butterfly-dreams their golden wings
      But seldom unfurl from their chrysalis;
     And thus I retain my loveliest things,
      While the world, in its worldliness, does not miss
             What a poet sings.

1. Hymn Sung at an Anniversary of the Asylum of Orphans at Charleston
2. Hymn Sung at the Consecration of Magnolia Cemetery, Charleston, S.C.
3. A Cry to Arms
4. If I Have Graced No Single Song of Mine
5. 1866 - Addressed to the Old Year

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