“Silence and coolness now the earth enfold”
"A Summer Night"
By Still Waters (1906)
Context: Silence and coolness now the earth enfold:
Jewels of glittering green, long mists of gold,
Hazes of nebulous silver veil the height,
And shake in tremors through the shadowy night.
Heard through the stillness, as in whispered words,
The wandering God-guided wings of birds
Ruffle the dark. The little lives that lie
Deep hid in grass join in a long-drawn sigh
More softly still; and unheard through the blue
The falling of innumerable dew,
Lifts with grey fingers all the leaves that lay
Burned in the heat of the consuming day.
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George William Russell 134
Irish writer, editor, critic, poet, and artistic painter 1867–1935Related quotes
“O pray the earth enfold
Our life-sick hearts and turn them into dust.”
A Last Word (1899).
As quoted in Richard Nixon's First Inaugural Address (20 January 1969)
Attributed
Source: The House of Mirth
“And silence sounds no worse than cheers
After earth has stopped the ears.”
No. 19 ("To an Athlete Dying Young"), st. 4.
A Shropshire Lad (1896)
“All silence is.
All emptiness.
And now:
The dawn.”
"Emily Dickinson, where are you? Herman Melville called your name last night in his sleep!" in When Elephants Last In The Dooryard Bloomed : Celebrations For Almost Any Day In The Year (1973)
Source: Power and Innocence (1972), Ch. 11 : The Humanity of the Rebel
Context: The authentic rebel knows that the silencing of all his adversaries is the last thing on earth he wishes: their extermination would deprive him and whoever else remains alive from the uniqueness, the originality, and the capacity for insight that these enemies — being human — also have and could share with him. If we wish the death of our enemies, we cannot talk about the community of man. In the losing of the chance for dialogue with our enemies, we are the poorer.
