Who knows how heavy his words may be,
Or watches, when he has set them free,
Their poising, their flight, their rise and fall
In the world of thought? We are careless all.
We fathom our own, not another's mind.
And are all near-sighted among our kind,
While words of ours and words of theirs
Are meeting and wrestling unawares.
Words are types of our moral trend,
The blooms of our daily lives, that lend
To others the fragrance of what we are—
The outward semblance that goes afar.
The part of ourselves that is not our own,
When set afloat in the vast unknown,
The something we give to the moving wheels
Of the mighty force that grows and feels.
No words are lost as they float away:
On some life ever they rest and weigh,
Unbound in public or depths obscure
Their immortality is secure.
Deep in our hearts we often find
Words lips long closed have left behind:
They live in the chambers of the brain,
The source of endless joy or pain.
Words may be soft as evening air
Or fierce as sultry noonday's glare,
But soft or fierce, be sure they rest
A curse or blessing in some one's breast.
How deep soever their meaning may lie,
Not every soul will pass them by!
No anger, nor passion, nor malice so great
But a match 'twill meet in a world of hate.
No love so deep, no word so kind
But lodges at last in a kindred mind,
No thought so vast, nor high nor low
But a parallel meets in a world of woe.
A heedless word a heart may break,
A thoughtful one a fortune make;
One, hurl a soul in endless night;
Another, lead to heaven's delight.
One word may nerve a murderer's arm,
Another still a raging storm—
One, sow the seeds of endless strife;
Another, sanctify a life.
Our words outline the feeble tongue
From which their outward being sprung,
Or, written on the stainless page,
They live to bless or curse an age.
How careful, then, ought we to be
Before we let such engines free!
Once free, no power can call them back,
Nor human genius trace their track.
We loose them 'mid the wide expanse
'Neath joyous spell or sorrow's trance,
But if their fruitage all could know
We would not deem them half so low.