What Use Is Speech?

What use is speech, what use is it to say
Words that without an echo die away,
And only leave vain sadness after?
All a forest of shadow rings with laughter,
If thou but move thy hand to grasp at life!

My love, the path on which we laugh with life
Pales in a doubt befogged with roads that leads not thorough;
The night is triumphing with stars, towards to-morrow!
In the night, thou sayest, shadowy terrors fall.
Be undeceived, there is no night:
There is only multiform, enormous light,
And the stars are there, for thee to be drunk withal!