The persona describes the masses bowing and praying to a neon god they made up. A neon god is a kind of bright god, a god that’s full of light or giving off light. And it says that they made him. We understand that the people created this god, that he isn’t necessarily a real or a true god but sort of a creation of these people. So, the people are bowing and praying to this neon god.<br />

The whisper is to make sure that those controlling the masses do not hear their plans and warnings for retaliation. This is because this form of protest can be done anonymously, therefore no one can get in trouble for it. This begins the whispering in the silence of the people, and starts the beginning of a revolt. As this spreads, more and more people will eventually get involved with it.

The persona uses this as way to show that his words have been predicted long ago by prophets and written on the walls to be remembered. Prophets are people who relay god's messages, so they could be the ones who started the religion. And they have a message for people and they want to usually warn them of some potential future. They choose to write it on subway and tenement halls as people pass by those areas the most.

The persona addresses the masses as fools, as they don't dare to challenge the system and break the silence, instead choosing to not question the system and live peacefully. He then says "silence like a cancer grows". The metaphor used represents this perfectly, as cancer, if left untouched, grows and spreads throughout your body. Growing is like incrementally becoming a bigger thing or figuratively, something more and more important. So, he really thinks that their silence, their inability to speak up for themselves and not let them be controlled, will hurt them and wants to try and save them from it.

Continuing from the previous line, it means that there’s some kind of risk, some kind of possible loss or vulnerability that may occur if you broke the tranquility of silence. The persona notes that the people are scared to break it, as disturbing means to change the state of something in a negative way. So, here no one dares. No one will even have the courage to disturb the sound of silence.

The word vision is being used yet again, which are referring to the images that the persona has been seeing in his dreams. The persona says that "The vision that was planted in my brain still remains". Planting is something you do with seeds. It means that you dig a hole in the earth, in the ground, and you put the seed inside and then you fill the hole with dirt or soil again. This is called planting a seed . though it’s figurative. The vision that he had in his sleep was the seed. So, the seeds of this dream, they still remain, they haven’t gone away and they’re still in his mind.

‘Neath is short for beneath , which means under or below. So, you can think of an umbrella. When it rains you open your umbrella and stay beneath the umbrella in order to protect yourself from getting wet. The persona is beneath the halo of a streetlamp. A lamp is an artificial light, usually a kind of electrical light, and a streetlamp is one that is placed on the side of the street in order to light it up and illuminate the area so people can see where they’re going. He’s beneath the halo of a streetlamp. A halo is like a ring or a circle of light that’s surrounding something. For instance, if you look at the moon at night it gives off a light and the light immediately around the moon could be called a halo . It’s kind of like a glow, the glow of the moon or the glow of a streetlamp. Underneath the halo means underneath the light of the streetlamp.

So, beneath the halo of a streetlamp, the persona "turned his collar to the cold and damp". Turning your collar up is something you would do when you feel cold. When the temperature is low outside and you want to warm up, you might turn your collar. This means that the persona turns up his collar to protect himself from the "cold and damp", which may indicate that he is about to face it.

So you're surrounded by darkness and then, all of a sudden, there's a flash, a bright light, a bright neon light. A flash is a kind of sudden brightness. For instance, if you turn a light switch on and then off quickly you’ll get a flash . Or, if you take a photo at night you often will use the flash , which will give you a quick burst of light. Neon light is a kind of light that’s often used to make signs for businesses at night. Neon is a type of gas or chemical element that shines in bright colors when electric current flows through it. So, a neon light is kind of like a bright and colorful electric light. So, there was this flash of neon light and the persona says my eyes were stabbed by it. The metaphor used here means that his eyes were shocked or surprised by this flash of neon light. Stabbed comes from the verb to stab, which means to penetrate with a sharp object. Usually people stab things with a knife, which means that they forcefully push the pointed end of the knife into something else. But here the meaning is quite figurative. He means his eyes were shocked or stabbed by this flash of neon light.

And this flash was so bright that it "split the night". The hyperbole used here means that this flash of light would have to be so powerful that a single stab could split the night apart literally, thus obliterating darkness completely.

Continuing from the two previous lines, the flash of neon light was so powerful that it not only split the night and penetrated darkness, but also "touched the sound" of silence. To touch means to make contact with, normally with some part of your body, like your hands. But here we have the light touching the silence. It touched, or was present at the same time as the sound of silence. So, now there’s light and the persona can see. It’s not so dark anymore and in the next verse he tells us what he sees.

Here we have a sign that is flashing out a warning. We remember the verb flash from before, which is the idea of light appearing and disappearing very rapidly. So, this neon god -- this neon sign -- is flashing out, or writing with light very quickly a warning . And a warning is a message which is trying to tell people of some kind of potential danger, some kind of risk, something that we should avoid. So, this sign is flashing out some kind of warning in the words that it was forming, it is warning us with written words and it’s forming and putting them together, it’s giving them shape or form. So, it’s flashing out some message to us a little bit at a time.

The persona tries to reach out to the people, but as the simile says, his efforts are futile. His words were silent . They didn’t make any noise at all. Which means no one heard them, no one paid any attention to his words. They fell from the sky like silent raindrops. Raindrops are the small, tiny little bits of water that fall from the sky when it rains, his words leaving his mouth and not making a sound. This means that even though he wanted to rally the people, they are too engrossed with societal norms that they don't even bother to listen to him. His words now "echo in the wells of silence", meaning that his words were discarded, its echoes vibrate around in the well trying to be heard, but are filled with silence which them from being reached out.

Hear my words means listen to what I say; please pay attention to what I tell you. Hear my words that I might teach you. The persona says this in desperation, as he says "hear my words that I MIGHT hear you", which means 'possibly', or 'hopefully', hear my words so that perhaps, I might be able to tell you something. "Take my arms that I might reach you" means that the persona is extending his arms out to help them, free them. We get the idea that he thinks these people are lost. And he wants to teach them, he wants to get to them, but he just can’t.

So continuing from the start of the stanza, what are these people doing? They’re talking. They’re having some kind of conversation. They’re communicating with one another. Usually when we talk we’re saying words out loud, we’re using our voices and speaking. But here it says people are talking without speaking, without making literal noises. Somehow people are communicating and having conversations without actually saying words out loud. . However, usually you hear sounds with your ears. But somehow these people are hearing even though there is no sound, and they’re hearing without listening. This means without paying particular attention to the meaning of what they’re hearing. Just because you hear a sound doesn’t mean that you’re paying attention to it. Like where there’s sounds going on in the background but you’re not really listening to them. You know that they’re there but you’re not really paying any attention. So, in the persona's dream he saw: people talking without speaking, people hearing without listening, and finally, people writing songs that voices never shared. If you write something, then you’re putting words on a page that represent, usually, sounds, so that people can read them later. You can write with a pen and paper or with your keyboard and a computer. So, writing songs is writing words for music. He says, people are writing songs that voices never share. We all have a voice , it’s what we use to speak or what you would use to sing songs. But, if voices are not sharing something then they’re not singing them, they’re not communicating them. Sharing literally means to show something to someone else or to allow them to participate in the experience with you. For instance, we can share words and have a conversation, we can share experiences and do some activity together, or we can share things like objects: food, music, songs. But, these voices are never sharing; it means not ever. It’s not happening. People are writing these songs but they’ll never be sung, they’ll never come to life in the form of music and sound. These 3 lines represent a society. As we are expected to follow and adhere to societal laws and the so-called 'norms', but we can see that the persona does not agree with this and wants to rebel against the rules.

Naked literally means without clothes. If you take off all of your clothing then you would be naked. But in this verse the persona says he saw ten thousand people in the naked light, meaning that he saw them in raw light, in the light which shows the true nature of things. Not the outside appearance, not like the clothing, but the naked , the natural, raw sense of it. "In the naked light I saw". Saw is the past tense of the verb to see, and it means that he witnessed or observed something with his eyes, which was ten thousand people, maybe more than that. This means that the persona is seeing the true light of ten thousand people

The word restless does not mean calm. In fact, very agitated or perhaps a little bit stressed. From the word 'restless' we can see two words in there. There’s the word 'rest', which means you’re calm, you’re at peace, you’re relaxing. But this is restless. Less means fewer or without. So, without rest or without much rest, that’s restless. And here the persona says "In restless dreams", meaning that he has trouble sleeping peacefully, thus having a restless night. So, in his restless dreams, the persona walked alone.

The persona then walks down a "narrow street of cobblestone". When there isn’t much room or much space you can say that the street is narrow. And this narrow or small street without much space is made of cobblestone. A street of cobblestone is one paved by cobblestones . These are rounded stones that you place in the ground to make a relatively flat surface for cars or for people to walk on. Paving a street with cobblestone is a rather old style. In many places of the world it’s much more common to use cement or concrete to pave the road. But nevertheless we see him walking alone on these narrow streets of cobblestone. The imagery used could represent that the persona is having difficulties adapting to modern society, which could infer that he feels isolated and cut off from the world.

The word "within" literally means inside. With and in, happening alongside the sound of silence. This is a very interesting phrase because silence literally means no sound, a lack of sound, no noise. When you hear nothing, you can say that it’s silent. But sound is the opposite of silence. Sound is any kind of noise, any kind of vibration that can be heard with your ears. The persona notes that the visions that he has been seeing remain within the boundaries of silence and darkness, which means that even though the persona finds comfort in the darkness, he is plagued by visions that haunt him in the silence and tranquility of it.

Continuing from the first two lines, the persona then confesses that a vision "softly creeping" came to him in his sleep and "left it's seeds". The diction “softly creeping” could indicate that the vision is slowly sneaking up to the persona quietly and proceeds to leave “it’s seeds” in the persona’s sleep. The metaphor suggests that some parts of the vision remains with him. Continuing from the first two line of the verse, it may suggest that when the persona is in darkness and silence, he can freely speak out loud, giving voice to the thoughts that are in his head even if there is no one listening to him. The Imagery used helps the reader to perceive the persona's feelings by utilizing the reader's five senses.

In the first part of the song, the persona is shown to be greeting the darkness and wanting to start up a conversation with it. He says, "Hello darkness, my old friend, I've come to talk to you again". The personification of the word “darkness” suggests that the persona is showing signs of melancholy, as he perceives the darkness as a person and even converses with 'it'. Which may further suggest that the persona has problems connecting with society.