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. Sonnets. 4. They Dub Thee Idler, Smiling Sneeringly
2. Sonnets. 12. What Gossamer Lures Thee Now? What Hope, What Name
3. Vox et Præterea Nihil
4. Hymn Sung at the Consecration of Magnolia Cemetery, Charleston, S.C.
5. Carmen Triumphale

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