STRONGER THAN DEATH 

 Who shall tell the story As it was? Write it with the heart's blood? (Pale ink, alas!) Speak it with the soul's lips, Or be dumb? Tell me, singers fled, and Song to come! 

Who shall tell the story

As it was?

Write it with the heart's blood?

(Pale ink, alas!)

Speak it with the soul's lips,

Or be dumb?

Tell me, singers fled, and

Song to come!

 No answer; like a shell the silence curls, And far within it leans a whisper out, Breathless and inarticulate, and whirls And dies as dies an ailing dread or doubt. 

And far within it leans a whisper out,

And dies as dies an ailing dread or doubt.

 And I—since there is found none else than I, No stronger, sweeter voice than mine, to tell This tale of love that cannot stoop to die— Were fain to be the whisper in the shell; 

No stronger, sweeter voice than mine, to tell

Were fain to be the whisper in the shell;

 Were fain to lose and spend myself within The sacred silence of one mighty heart, And leaning from it, hidden there, to win Some finer ear that, listening, bends apart. 

The sacred silence of one mighty heart,

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