world-deafen'd

Updated: May 9, 2025

'Only, but this is rare When a beloved hand is laid in ours, When, jaded with the rush and glare Of the interminable hours, Our eyes can in another's eyes read clear, When our world-deafen'd ear Is by the tones of a loved voice caress'd A bolt is shot back somewhere in our breast, And a lost pulse of feeling stirs again: The eye sinks inward, and the heart lies plain, And what we mean, we say, and what we would, we know.

Richard Le Gallienne - Prose Fancies (Second Series)