Poem by Henry King, Bishop of Chichester

Silence

A Sonnet

Peace my hearts blab, be ever dumb,
Sorrowes speak loud without a tongue:
And my perplexed thoughts forbear
To breath your selves in any ear:
Tis scarce a true or manly grief
Which gaddes abroad to find relief.
Was ever stomack that lackt meat
Nourisht by what another eat?
Can I bestow it, or will woe
Forsake me when I bid it goe?
Then Ile believe a wounded breast
May heal by shrift, and purchase rest.
But if imparting it I do
Not ease my self, but trouble two,
'Tis better I alone possess
My treasure of unhappiness:
Engrossing that which is my own
No longer then it is unknown.
If silence be a kind of death,
He kindles grief who gives it breath;
But let it rak't in embers lye,
On thine own hearth 'twill quickly dye;
And spight of fate, that very wombe
Which carries it, shall prove its tombe. 

1. The Short Wooing
2. Madam Gabrina, Or The Ill-Favourd Choice
3. To His Friends of Christ-Church upon the Mislike of the Marriage of the Arts Acted at Woodstock
4. Sonnet. Go thou that vainly do'st mine eyes invite
5. To the Queen at Oxford

Edgar Masters Silence ("I have known the silence of the stars and of the sea")

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