'Silence: a Sonnet for Remembrance Day' (poem) written by Malcolm Guite

This poem is published in the anthology 'Sounding the Seasons'


 November pierces with its bleak remembrance

Of all the bitterness and waste of war.

Our silence tries but fails to make a semblance

Of that lost peace they thought worth fighting for. 

Our silence seethes instead with wraiths and whispers,

And all the restless rumour of new wars,

The shells are falling all around our vespers,

No moment is unscarred, there is no pause,

In every instant bloodied innocence

Falls to the weary earth, and whilst we stand

Quiescence ends again in acquiescence,

And Abel's blood still cries in every land

One silence only might redeem that blood

Only the silence of a dying God.

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