Silence -- Thomas Hood

Inspired by my previous poem...

(Poem #512) Silence There is a silence where hath been no sound, There is a silence where no sound may be, In the cold grave--under the deep, deep, sea, Or in wide desert where no life is found, Which hath been mute, and still must sleep profound; No voice is hushed--no life treads silently, But clouds and cloudy shadows wander free, That never spoke, over the idle ground: But in green ruins, in the desolate walls Of antique palaces, where Man hath been, Though the dun fox, or wild hyena, calls, And owls, that flit continually between, Shriek to the echo, and the low winds moan, There the true Silence is, self-conscious and alone. -- Thomas Hood

Today's sonnet is built around an intriguing conceit - that there are two
kinds of silence, that where life has never been, and that which flows back
after man has come and gone.

A beautiful conceit, and beautifully developed - there's not a whole lot it
needs said about it. The use of 'self-conscious' at the end is unusual,
though - while I'm not sure what Hood intended by it, I personally lean
towards 'self-aware', rather than the more modern usage.

Links:

We've run one Hood poem, which includes a biography - see poem #251

-martin