Text: Edgar Allan Poe (ed. James H. Whitty), “Sonnet — Silence,” The Complete Poems of Edgar Allan Poe, Houghton Mifflin Company, 1911, p. 35


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[page 35, unnumbered:]

SONNET — SILENCE

THERE are some qualities — some incorporate things,

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That have a double life, which thus is made

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A 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,

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

He is the corporate Silence: dread him not!

No power hath he of evil in himself;

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But should some urgent fate (untimely lot!)

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Bring thee to meet his shadow (nameless elf,

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That haunteth the lone regions where hath trod

No foot of man,) commend thyself to God!

 


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Notes:

None.

 

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[S:0 - JHW11, 1911] - Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore - Works - Sonnet -- Silence (ed. J. H. Whitty, 1911)