The Voiceless in  General   

WE count the broken lyres that rest
Where the sweet wailing singers slumber,
But o'er their silent sister's breast
The wild-flowers who will stoop to number?
A few can touch the magic string,
And noisy Fame is proud to win them:--
Alas for those that never sing,
But die with all their music in them!

Nay, grieve not for the dead alone
Whose song has told their hearts' sad story,--
Weep for the voiceless, who have known
The cross without the crown of glory!
Not where Leucadian breezes sweep
O'er Sappho's memory-haunted billow,
But where the glistening night-dews weep
On nameless sorrow's churchyard pillow.

O hearts that break and give no sign
Save whitening lip and fading tresses,
Till Death pours out his longed-for wine
Slow-dropped from Misery's crushing presses,--
If singing breath or echoing chord
To every hidden pang were given,
What endless melodies were poured,
As sad as earth, as sweet as heaven!

By Oliver Wendell Holmes

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Other poems by Oliver Wendell Holmes:

• A Familiar Letter
• A Farewell to Agassiz
• A Parody on “A Psalm of Life”
• Bill and Joe
• Cacoethes Scribendi
• Contentment
• Daily Trials by a Sensitive Man
• Dorothy Q.
• For the Moore Centennial Celebration
• Martha
• My Aviary
• Old Ironsides
• Poem (Halleck monument dedication)
• Sun and Shadow
• The Boys
• The Chambered Nautilus
• The Dorchester Giant
• The Flaâneur
• The Flower of Liberty
• The Height of the Ridiculous
• The Iron Gate
• The Last Leaf
• The Living Temple
• The Old Man Dreams
• The Opening of the Piano
• The Organ-Blower
• The September Gale
• The Silent Melody
• The Two Streams
• The Voiceless
• Under the Violets
• Union and Liberty
• Æstivation