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. To His Friends of Christ-Church upon the Mislike of the Marriage of the Arts Acted at Woodstock
2. To My Sister Anne King, Who Chid Me In Verse For Being Angry
3. The Vow-Breaker
4. Madam Gabrina, Or The Ill-Favourd Choice
5. Sonnet. Dry those fair, those chrystal eyes

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

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