So, Edgar Allen Poe is not known for his sonnets. He only ever wrote 5 of them. But, a discussion of the one he penned in either 1840 or 1845 titled "Silence" deserves a spot in my blog for sure. And it's a lovely sad piece from Poe which is perhaps expected. But in my opinion, this sonnet loses its steam in the last few lines but is totally worthy of note for these:
There are some qualities--some incorporate things,
That have a double life, which thus is made
A type of that twin entity which springs
From matter and light, evinced in solid and shade.
There is a two-fold Silence--sea and shore--
Body and Soul. One dwells in lonely places,
This passage is packed full of depth and darkness and it makes me want to sit outside in the fading daylight and stare into the deep blue ocean while listening to the wind at my back on the shore. It reminds me of a novel I finished recently aptly titled "Ocean Sea" where the Italian novelist Alessandro Baricco beatifully paints the same picture through fable-like narratives, all of them focused on the sheer life force that is...the sea.
Living near the water, this passage of Poe's struck me when I ran across it today. So I shared it here to bookmark it for my future musing.
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