When There is Silence

When there is silence looming on the air,
When words are vague reminders of our time,
When you seem as a ghost of fading care,
I turn to woe, to sadness, and to rhyme.
I cannot say what drives me to this verge;
Conflicting sorrows crush my timid hope.
Aspiring dreams do naught to quell or purge
My fears of discontentment on this slope
Of living tears. Or do I think with haste,
Act without sense, to judge what is not clear?
What is the truth? My mind has surely raced
And drowned, by rashness, reason with my fear.
But now I wait, and hope, on your reply;
That my affections still might live, not die.