Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Nicholson & Lee, eds. The Oxford Book of English Mystical Verse. 1917.

Fiona MacLeod (William Sharp) (1855–1905)

226. The Valley of Silence

IN the secret Valley of Silence

No breath doth fall;

No wind stirs in the branches;

No bird doth call:

As on a white wall

A breathless lizard is still,

So silence lies on the valley

Breathlessly still.

In the dusk-grown heart of the valley

An altar rises white:

No rapt priest bends in awe

Before its silent light:

But sometimes a flight

Of breathless words of prayer

White-wing’d enclose the altar,

Eddies of prayer.