...That They Don't Understand

And when at length the drear and long time soothed thy fiercer woes,
How plaintively thy mournful song upon the still night rose

I've heard it often as if I dreamed, distant, sweet and lone;
The funeral dirge, or so it seemed, of reasons dead and gone.

Air held her breath; trees with the spell seemed sorrowing spectres round,
Whose swelling tears as dewdrops fell upon the listening ground.

But that is past, and naught remains that raised us o'er the brutes;
Our piercing shrieks and soothing strains are both forever mute.

Now fare thee well! Once, more cause than subject of woe.
All mental pangs by time's unkind laws hath lost the power to know.

O Death! thou awe-inspiring prince that keepst the world in fear,
Why dost thou tear more blest ones hence and leave madness lingering here?