Text: Edgar Allan Poe, “Sonnet — Silence” (Text-02), Saturday Courier (Philadelphia), January 4, 1840, p. 1, col. 5


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[page 1, column 5, continued:]

Written for the Philadelphia Saturday Courier.

SILENCE.

A Sonnet.

BY EDGAR A. POE, ESQ.

There are some qualities — some incorporate things

That have a double life — life aptly made,

The type of that twin entity which springs

From matter and light, evinced in solid and shade.

There is a two-fold Silence — sea and shore —

Body and soul. One dwells in lonely places,

Newly with grass o'ergrown. Some solemn graces —

Some human memories and tearful lore,

Render him terrorless — his name's “No More.”

He is the corporate Silence — dread him not!

No power hath he of evil in himself;

But should some urgent fate — untimely lot!

Bring thee to meet his shadow (nameless elf,

Who haunteth the dim regions where hath trod

No foot of man) — commend thyself to God!


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Notes:

Poe uses the phrase “No More” in several other poems.


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[S:0 - PSC, 1840] - Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore - Works - Poems - Sonnet — Silence (Text-02)