Peace my hearts blab, be ever dumb, <br />Sorrowes speak loud without a tongue: <br />And my perplexed thoughts forbear <br />To breath your selves in any ear: <br />Tis scarce a true or manly grief <br />Which gaddes abroad to find relief. <br />Was ever stomack that lackt meat <br />Nourisht by what another eat? <br />Can I bestow it, or will woe <br />Forsake me when I bid it goe? <br />Then Ile believe a wounded breast <br />May heal by shrift, and purchase rest. <br />But if imparting it I do <br />Not ease my self, but trouble two, <br />'Tis better I alone possess <br />My treasure of unhappiness: <br />Engrossing that which is my own <br />No longer then it is unknown. <br />If silence be a kind of death, <br />He kindles grief who gives it breath; <br />But let it rak't in embers lye, <br />On thine own hearth 'twill quickly dye; <br />And spight of fate, that very wombe <br />Which carries it, shall prove its tombe.<br /><br />Henry King<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/silence-a-sonnet/
