Page:Dreams and Dust, by Don Marquis.djvu/27



over, my Undine, and clutch me a reed— Nymph of mine idleness, notch me a pipe— For I am fulfilled of the silence, and long For to utter the sense of the silence in song.

Down-stream all the rapids are troubled with pebbles
 * That fetter and fret what the water would utter,

And it rushes and splashes in tremulous trebles;
 * It makes haste through the shallows, its soul is aflutter;

But here all the sound is serene and outspread
 * In the murmurous moods of a slow-swirling pool;
 * Here all the sounds are unhurried and cool;

Every silence is kith to a sound; they are wed, They are mated, are mingled, are tangled, are bound; Every hush is in love with a sound, every sound By the law of its life to some silence is bound.