Poems (Procter)/Words

by Adelaide Anne Procter

For works with similar titles, see Words.

WORDS.

ORDS are lighter than the cloud-foam
 Of the restless ocean spray;
Vainer than the trembling shadow
 That the next hour steals away.
By the fall of summer rain-drops
 Is the air as deeply stirred;
And the rose-leaf that we tread on
  Will outlive a word.

Yet, on the dull silence breaking
 With a lightning flash, a Word,
Bearing endless desolation
 On its blighting wings, I heard:
Earth can forge no keener weapon,
 Dealing surer death and pain,
And the cruel echo answered
  Through long years again.

I have known one word hang starlike
 O'er a dreary waste of years,
And it only shone the brighter
 Looked at through a mist of tears;
While a weary wanderer gathered
 Hope and heart on Life's dark way,
By its faithful promise, shining
  Clearer day by day.

I have known a spirit, calmer
 Than the calmest lake, and clear
As the heavens that gazed upon it,
 With no wave of hope or fear;
But a storm had swept across it,
 And its deepest depths were stirred,
(Never, never more to slumber,)
  Only by a word.

I have known a word more gentle
 Than the breath of summer air;
In a listening heart it nestled,
 And it lived forever there.
Not the beating of its prison
 Stirred it ever, night or day;
Only with the heart's last throbbing
  Could it fade away.

Words are mighty, words are living:
 Serpents with their venomous stings,
Or bright angels, crowding round us,
 With heaven's light upon their wings:
Every word has its own spirit,
 True or false, that never dies;
Every word man's lips have uttered
  Echoes in God's skies.