Why Silent?
Why am I silent from year to year?Needs must I sing on these blue March days?What will you say, when I tell you here,That already, I think, for a little praise,I have paid too dear?
For, I know not why, when I tell my thought,It seems as though I fling it away;And the charm wherewith a fancy is fraught,When secret, dies with the fleeting layInto which it is wrought.
So my butterfly-dreams their golden wingsBut seldom unfurl from their chrysalis;And thus I retain my loveliest things,While the world, in its worldliness, does not missWhat a poet sings.