WHY is the Grave so silent? Why is the Tomb so dead? Wherefore this gloomy secret on each departed head? Why do we name them seldom, and then with voices low, As if some shame were on them, or superhuman woe? Were Death the sleep eternal that some despairing feign, Had never Faith engendered the hope to meet again, -- Still why should this great absence obliterate with it tears The happiest recollections and sympathies of years? Oh, no! Death could not banish the love that lived complete, And passed away untarnished to its celestial seat! Oh, no! 'tis not the living that we should harshly blame, But that men lightly cherish their pure domestic fame. How few leave not behind them some cause to bless the tomb, That mercifully closes, and pardons in its gloom! How few go from us, leaving the thoughts of them so dear, That aye the prayer besets us, "O God! that they were here!" So that in distant evenings, when joyous faces glow About the Christmas fire-light and laughter melts the snow, -- In pauses of the revel, some heart without a fear, Will passionately murmur -- "Ah! why are they not here?" Or that in weary seasons, when sickness racks the brain, And lordly Reason falters, and Will is only pain, -- Those whom they loved to counsel may mystically hear Their voices leading onwards the path they trod when here: Or that in awful moments, when evil seems set free To tempt mankind to question what God of Truth there be, -- The sense how @3they,@1 too, strove and conquered, serves to cheer The struggler, dimly conscious of spirits watching near. Not, then, to Heroes only, to Poet, Statesman, King, Let care of future glory its anxious duties bring; There is no name so lowly, that may not raise a shrine Of living hearts, to honour its memory as Divine! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...DOWN-HILL ON A BICYCLE by LOUIS UNTERMEYER SACRED ELEGY: 5. THE SEPARATION OF MAN FROM GOD by GEORGE BARKER THE VIRGIN MARY TO THE CHILD JESUS by ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING IN MAY by PAUL LAURENCE DUNBAR THE SLAVE AUCTION by FRANCES ELLEN WATKINS HARPER ON A CURATE'S COMPLAINT OF HARD DUTY by JONATHAN SWIFT THE WIDOW'S LAMENT IN SPRINGTIME by WILLIAM CARLOS WILLIAMS ON A VOLUME OF ANONYNOUS POEMS ENTITLED A MASQUE OF POETS by THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH |