| Arthur Quiller-Couch, ed. 1919. The Oxford Book of English Verse: 1250–1900. |
| |
| William Wordsworth. 1770–1850 |
| |
| 541. Speak! |
| |
| WHY art thou silent! Is thy love a plant | |
| Of such weak fibre that the treacherous air | |
| Of absence withers what was once so fair? | |
| Is there no debt to pay, no boon to grant? | |
| Yet have my thoughts for thee been vigilant— | 5 |
| Bound to thy service with unceasing care, | |
| The mind's least generous wish a mendicant | |
| For nought but what thy happiness could spare. | |
| Speak—though this soft warm heart, once free to hold | |
| A thousand tender pleasures, thine and mine, | 10 |
| Be left more desolate, more dreary cold | |
| Than a forsaken bird's-nest filled with snow | |
| 'Mid its own bush of leafless eglantine— | |
| Speak, that my torturing doubts their end may know! | |
|
|
