If words could say how much I love thee, dear,
I should distrust my love, as being weak,
And leave unsaid these words which now I speak:
But I remember how tear after tear,
(Sweet tears of joy !) fell on my burning cheek,
That happy night, when from your lips I heard
My all of happiness summed up in a word;—
And how even then my heart did vainly seek
For love's interpreter, till an inward voice
Whispered,—O happy heart! there is no choice,
For only silence may such love express
As that which now your o'er-fraught bosom bears;
Thy tongue were spokesman if thy love were less:
We guess the stream's depth from the calm it wears!