Silence

[ZaunköniG]

Silence

All search of yours but ineffectual seems
To gain some coign of refuge, year by year;
Since far in loneliest woods, in wastes austere,
Winds call, beasts wander, or yet the vulture screams.
With hated sounds of life all nature teems,
And even among the deeps of sleep you hear
Voices now clad in distance or now clear,
That float forever from the lips of dreams!
But weary of spirit, and affrighted too,
At last you hurry away, with footsteps fleet,
To find, in chaos, torpor, and eclipse,
Death, your one lover inalienably true,
Encircled by whose ghostly arms you meet
The awful icy passion of his lips!