"Palestine"; this was altered in later editions to: "No workman’s steel, no ponderous axes rung, Like some tall palm the noiseless fabric sprung".
need further publication dates
Variant: No hammers fell, no ponderous axes rung;
Like some tall palm the mystic fabric sprung.
Majestic silence!
“Silently as a dream the fabric rose —
No sound of hammer or of saw was there.”
Source: The Task (1785), Book V, The Winter Morning Walk, Line 144.
Lays of Sorrow No.1, opening lines
The Rectory Umbrella
“Silence fell. The clock on my mantel ticked aloud and the wind outside flowed past like a river.”
Source: There Will Be Time (1972), Chapter 16 (p. 175)
“From each a mystic silence Love demands.”
"Intoxicated by the Wine of Love" as translated by Margaret Smith from "The Jawhar Al-Dhat"
Variant translation:
From each, Love demands a mystic silence.
As translated in Essential Sufism, by James Fadiman and Robert Frager
Context: From each a mystic silence Love demands.
What do all seek so earnestly? 'Tis Love.
What do they whisper to each other? Love.
Love is the subject of their inmost thoughts.
In Love no longer "thou" and "I" exist,
For Self has passed away in the Beloved.
“The day in his hotness,
The strife with the palm;
The night in her silence,
The stars in their calm.”
Act II
Empedocles on Etna (1852)
“The towers shine in a larger blue, and the portals bloom with a mystic light. Silence was ordered and mute in terror fell the world. From on high he begins. His holy words have weight heavy and immutable and the Fates follow his voice.”
Radiant majore sereno
culmina et arcano florentes lumine postes.
postquam jussa quies siluitque exterritus orbis,
incipit ex alto: grave et inmutabile sanctis
pondus adest verbis, et vocem fata sequuntur.
Source: Thebaid, Book I, Line 209
“For they are like an ax, differing only in”
X, 38
Meditations (c. 121–180 AD), Book X
Context: In contemplating thyself never include the vessel which surrounds thee, and these instruments which are attached about it. For they are like an ax, differing only in this, that they grow to the body. For indeed there is no more use in these parts without the cause which moves and checks them than in the weaver's shuttle, and the writer's pen, and the driver's whip.
The Sound of Silence
Song lyrics, Wednesday Morning, 3 A.M. (1964)
