Solitude Poem by David Stern

Silence - only the spider stirs her web at times,
Or a gentle breeze strokes the poplar outside;
Oh! How my soul can breathe and sweetly dream -
Here no chatter, no smile shackles my thoughts.

Like a slave who has crushed his heavy chains
And in his heart feels the smothered life anew,
So I, for a moment relieved from torments,
The beauty and charm of silence I grasp and feel.

For when at banquet our hearts cannot relate,
When disjoined thoughts must live together,
When a soul cannot comprehend a soul -

For naught the nectars sipped in abundance;
Laughter, song, banquet - all is a torment;
True bliss and life in me - when my thought is free.