"Least said, soonest mended" is a proverb that I had not heard of until I came across the following poem by Christina Rossetti. One of the earliest versions of the proverb appeared in John Heywood's Three Hundred Epigrams Upon Three Hundred Proverbs in 1562: "little said, soon amended." Rossetti's version appears in the first line of her poem.
Given the subject matter of the poem, "mending" (as in the mending of fishing nets) gives the proverb an added resonance. Further, Rossetti's use of "nothing said" (rather than "least said" or "little said") establishes a theme of silence that works its way gracefully (and movingly) through the entire poem.
The soonest mended, nothing said;
And help may rise from east or west;
But my two hands are lumps of lead,
My heart sits leaden in my breast.
O north wind swoop not from the north,
O south wind linger in the south,
Oh come not raving raging forth,
To bring my heart into my mouth;
For I've a husband out at sea,
Afloat on feeble planks of wood;
He does not know what fear may be;
I would have told him if I could.
I would have locked him in my arms,
I would have hid him in my heart;
For oh! the waves are fraught with harms,
And he and I so far apart.
Christina Rossetti, A Pageant and Other Poems (1881).