A Reed by the River/Interlude

by Virginia Woodward Cloud

INTERLUDE

Alike to grief, to joy, to thrill of song,
To all the sweet futility of fears,
To pain of singing or to rapture strong,
To tremulo of hope or gift of tears
Comes silence;—sweet amid the fire of morn
Is singing, and beneath while blossoms' fall,
But silence, mother of all beauty born,
Shrines in a hush the tenderest note of all.
As unto day, dusk brings beatitude,
To life is silence warder of the best;
O in Time's silent dusk, past tumult rude,
Past all regretting's bound or sad unrest,
Love, gather to thy heart some thought that be
Through winnowing of years, the best of me!