Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, SILENCE. A SONNET, by HENRY KING (1592-1669)


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SILENCE. A SONNET, by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: Peace, my heart's blab, be ever dumb
Last Line: Which carries it, shall prove its tomb.
Subject(s): Silence


PEACE, my heart's blab, be ever dumb,
Sorrows speak loud without a tongue:
And, my perplexed thoughts, forbear
To breathe yourselves in any ear:
'Tis scarce a true or manly grief,
Which gads abroad to find relief.

Was ever stomach that lack'd meat
Nourish'd by what another eat?
Can I bestow it, or will woe
Forsake me, when I bid it go?
Then I'll believe a wounded breast
May heal by shrift, and purchase rest.

But if, imparting it, I do
Not ease myself, but trouble two,
'Tis better I alone possess
My treasure of unhappiness:
Engrossing that which is my own
No longer than it is unknown.

If silence be a kind of death,
He kindles grief who gives it breath;
But let it rak'd in embers lie,
On thine own hearth 'twill quickly die;
And spite of fate, that very womb
Which carries it, shall prove its tomb.





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