On Prayer

‘Hold not Thy peace at my tears’


What is the saddest, sweetest, lowest sound
Nearest akin to perfect silence? Not
The delicate whisper sometimes in the hot
Autumnal morning heard the cornfields round;
Nor yet to lonely man, now almost bound
By slumber, near his house a murmuring river
Buzzing and droning o'er the stones for ever.
Not such faint voice of Autumn oat-encrown'd,
And not such liquid murmur, O my heart!
But tears that drop o'er doubts as well as graves,
A sound the very weeper scarcely hears,
A music in which silence hath some part.
O! the all-gentle by all-hearing saves—
Hold not Thy peace then, Saviour, at my tears.