Verse > Henry Wadsworth Longfellow > Complete Poetical Works
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Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882).  Complete Poetical Works.  1893.
 
A Book of Sonnets
The Three Silences of Molinos
 
        
To John Greenleaf Whittier
  Written to be read at the dinner given by the publishers of The Atlantic Monthly to Mr. Whittier in honor of his seventieth birthday, December 18, 1877.

THREE Silences there are: the first of speech,
  The second of desire, the third of thought;
  This is the lore a Spanish monk, distraught
  With dreams and visions, was the first to teach.
These Silences, commingling each with each,        5
  Made up the perfect Silence that he sought
  And prayed for, and wherein at times he caught
  Mysterious sounds from realms beyond our reach.
O thou, whose daily life anticipates
  The life to come, and in whose thought and word        10
  The spiritual world preponderates,
Hermit of Amesbury! thou too hast heard
  Voices and melodies from beyond the gates,
  And speakest only when thy soul is stirred!
 
 
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