Page:Poems of Sentiment and Imagination.djvu/87

Rh THE HEART'S REQUIEM.

"! and for whom?

For beauty in its bloom?

For valor fallen—a broken rose or sword?

A dirge for king or chief,

With pomp of stately grief,

Banner, and torch, and waving plume deplored?

"Not so! it is not so!"

No sounding wail of woe

Swells to the heavens when human hearts lie dead;

No torch lights up the gloom

Of the heart's rayless tomb;

No funeral incense o'er its dust is shed.

Wild was that heart's distress,

Fierce the dark bitterness

With which it bore its heavy griefs untold;

Scorning the poor relief

The false world offers grief—

Disdaining sympathy so false and cold.

Silent, unwept, alone

Breathing into the tone

Of its last long and passionate farewell,

Whole treasures of rich thought,

With the soul's fullness fraught,

Then dying with the melody's last swell.

Not the loud mournful dirge,

Sung by the ocean's surge,

Above the grave where buried thousands lie,

Rises to Heaven's high throne

With more emphatic tone,

Or with a note of purer majesty.