The Poems of Henry Kendall

Silent Tears

Henry Kendall


WHAT bitter sorrow courses down
    Yon mourner’s faded cheek?
Those scalding drops betray a grief
    Within, too full to speak.
Outspoken words cannot express
    The pangs, the pains of years;
They’re ne’er so deep or eloquent
    As are those silent tears.

Here is a wound that in the breast
    Must canker, hid’n from sight;
Though all without seems sunny day,
    Within ’Tis ever night.
Yet sometimes from this secret source
    The gloomy truth appears;
The wind’s dark dungeon must have vent
    If but in silent tears.

The world may deem from outward looks
    That heart is hard and cold;
But oh! could they the mantle lift
    What sorrows would be told!
Then, only then, the truth would show
    Which most the bosom sears:
The pain portrayed by burning words
    Or that by—silent tears.


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