Yes Britain mourns, as with electric shock For youth, for love, for happiness destroyed. Her universal population wells In grief spontaneous; and hard hearts are moved, And rough unpolished natures learn to feel For those they envied, humbled in the dust By fate's impartial hand; and pulpits sound With vanity and woe to earthly goods, And urge, and dry the tear -- Yet one there is Who midst this general burst of grief remains In strange tranquillity; whom not the stir And long drawn murmurs of the gathering crowd, That by his very windows trail the pomp Of hearse, and blazoned arms, and long array Of sad funereal rites, nor the loud groans And deep felt anguish of a husband's heart Can move to mingle with this flood one tear. In careless apathy -- perhaps in mirth He spends the day; yet is he near in blood, The very stem on which this blossom grew, And at his knees she fondled, in the charm And grace spontaneous, which alone belongs To untaught infancy; yet -- Oh forbear Nor deem him hard of heart, for, awful, struck By heaven's severest visitation, sad, Like a scathed oak amidst the forest trees Lonely he stands; leaves sprout, and fade, and fall, And seasons run their round, to him in vain, He holds no sympathy with living nature, Or time's incessant change. Then, in this hour, While pensive thought is busy with the woes And restless cares of poor humanity, Oh think of him, and set apart one sigh, From the full tide of sorrow spare one tear For him who does not weep. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...A LITTLE WHILE by SARA TEASDALE EGERTON MANUSCRIPT: 104. JOPAS'S SONG by THOMAS WYATT DREAM SONG: 1 by PAUL LAURENCE DUNBAR THE EBB AND FLOW by EDWARD TAYLOR GREENES FUNERALLS: SONNET 10. A CATALOGUE OF CERTAINE OF HIS BOOKES by RICHARD BARNFIELD SONNET: 8. TO THE RIVER ITCHIN, NEAR WINTON by WILLIAM LISLE BOWLES |