Evening Solace

Evening Solace

The human heart has hidden treasures, 
In secret kept, in silence sealed;­
The thoughts, the hopes, the dreams, the pleasures, 
Whose charms were broken if revealed. 
And days may pass in gay confusion, 
And nights in rosy riot fly, 
While, lost in Fame's or Wealth's illusion, 
The memory of the Past may die. 

But, there are hours of lonely musing, 
Such as in evening silence come, 
When, soft as birds their pinions closing, 
The heart's best feelings gather home. 
Then in our souls there seems to languish 
A tender grief that is not woe; 
And thoughts that once wrung groans of anguish, 
Now cause but some mild tears to flow. 

And feelings, once as strong as passions, 
Float softly back­a faded dream; 
Our own sharp griefs and wild sensations,
The tale of others' sufferings seem. 
Oh ! when the heart is freshly bleeding, 
How longs it for that time to be, 
When, through the mist of years receding, 
Its woes but live in reverie ! 

And it can dwell on moonlight glimmer, 
On evening shade and loneliness; 
And, while the sky grows dim and dimmer, 
Feel no untold and strange distress­ 
Only a deeper impulse given 
By lonely hour and darkened room, 
To solemn thoughts that soar to heaven, 
Seeking a life and world to come. 

-Charlotte Brontë

This poem stuck with me tonight. Specifically the first four lines and the last stanza.

A friend of mine put up this quote awhile ago, and it's been mulling around in my brain ever since.

"The most important things are the hardest things to say. They are the things you get ashamed of, because words diminish them--words shrink things that seemed limitless when they were in your head to no more than living size when they're brought out. But it's more than that isn't it? The most important things lie too close to wherever your secret heart is buried, like landmarks to a treasure your enemies would love to steal away. And you may make revelations that cost you dearly only to have people look at you in a funny way, not understanding what you've said at all, or why you thought it was so important that you almost cried as you were saying it. That's the worst, I think. When the secret stays locked within not for want of a teller but for want of an understanding ear." --Stephen King, Different Seasons

What are the secret things? The ones I'm thinking of are the hopes and dreams you never talk about because you don't know if they'll ever happen.