What bitter sorrow courses down <br />Yon mourner’s faded cheek? <br />Those scalding drops betray a grief <br />Within, too full to speak. <br />Outspoken words cannot express <br />The pangs, the pains of years; <br />They’re ne’er so deep or eloquent <br />As are those silent tears. <br />Here is a wound that in the breast <br />Must canker, hid’n from sight; <br />Though all without seems sunny day, <br />Within ’Tis ever night. <br />Yet sometimes from this secret source <br />The gloomy truth appears; <br />The wind’s dark dungeon must have vent <br />If but in silent tears. <br /> <br />The world may deem from outward looks <br />That heart is hard and cold; <br />But oh! could they the mantle lift <br />What sorrows would be told! <br />Then, only then, the truth would show <br />Which most the bosom sears: <br />The pain portrayed by burning words <br />Or that by—silent tears.<br /><br />Henry Kendall<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/silent-tears-7/
