Yet such I ask, blown hither by some wind,
To give relief to this too perfect knowledge,
The Silence so impresses on my mind.

How poor the love that needeth word or message,
To banish doubt or nourish tenderness!
I ask them but to temper love's convictions
The Silence all too fully doth express.

Too deep the language which the spirit utters;
Too vast the knowledge which my soul hath stirred.
Send some white ship across the Sea of Silence,
And interrupt its utterance with a word.

[Illustration:]

[Illustration:]




CONVERSION.

I have lived this life as the skeptic lives it;
I have said the sweetness was less than the gall;
Praising, nor cursing, the Hand that gives it,
I have drifted aimlessly through it all.
I have scoffed at the tale of a so-called heaven;
I have laughed at the thought of a Supreme Friend;
I have said that it only to man was given