Men to their Wives

Poemata XLVIII

Walters Art Gallery: Partial Illuminated Bible Manuscript

To him, Beauty has a name;
Would it have to remain unspoken
As ideal, would it be the same
If the silence stayed unbroken?
 Did beauty once have for him
 Many names, and in a confusion
 Of words did speech fall grim
 Into meaningless profusion?
For no collective has a name
But that of its father--
Many titles to proclaim
But wherefore this other?
 A mystery writ upon a page
 In books unopened and strange
 In places unlooked-for, and age
 Alone such fates may arrange;
Many books lie thus empty.
Is it that no one yet wrote
On their pages, none to see
No heart of hearts yet unsmote?
 Strike me then, if you can
 If you meet me upon the road
 Do not suffer me to live, then
 If such ink shall never have flowed;
"But to say more," he says at length
As one who closes a book with a snap
"Would be to kill me again, O, strength--!
"Only in silence can I speak this pact!"