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Home  »  Modern British Poetry  »  The Valley of Silence

Louis Untermeyer, ed. (1885–1977). Modern British Poetry. 1920.

Fiona MacLeod (William Sharp)1855–1905

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.