Constance Fenimore Woolson
Love Unexpressed
The sweetest notes among the human heart-strings are
dull with rust;
The sweetest chords, adjusted by the angels, are clogged with
dust;
We pipe and pipe again our dreary music upon the self-same
strains,
While sounds of crime, and fear, and desolation, come back
in sad refrains.
On
through the world we go, an army marching with listening ears,
Each longing, sighing, for the heavenly music he never hears;
Each longing, sighing, for a word of comfort, a word of tender
praise,
A word of love, to cheer the endless journey of Earth's hard,
busy days.
They love us, and we know it; this suffices for reason's share.
Why should they pause to give that love expression with gentle
care?
Why should they pause? But still our hearts are aching with
all the gnawing pain
Of hungry love that longs to hear the music, and longs and longs
in vain.
We
love them, and they know it; if we falter, with fingers numb,
Among the unused strings of love's expression, the notes are
dumb.
We shrink within ourselves in voiceless sorrow, leaving the
words unsaid,
And, side by side with those we love the dearest, in silence
on we tread.
Thus
on we tread, and thus each heart in silence its fate fulfils,
Waiting and hoping for the heavenly music beyond the distant
hills.
