Poems (Edwards)/Name not the Dead

by Matilda Caroline Smiley Edwards

For works with similar titles, see Name not the Dead.

NAME NOT THE DEAD.

Name not the dead, O let their names
 Be sacred as their dreamless rest;
Or, if thou name them, let it be
 To those who knew and loved them best;
A stranger cannot feel the loss
 Of one, who was to him, unknown,
A stranger cannot mourn like thee;
 Then let thy grief be only known.
To those whose hearts have deeply felt
 Afflictions, painful as thine own.

Name not the dead who slumber low
 Beneath the cold and silent clay,
Breathe not their names before the vain,
 The heartless, careless and the gay;
Keep thou their memories in thy heart,
 Too sacred for the lip of mirth,
Too sacred to be breathed aloud
 Before the heartless ones of earth;
O name them only in thy home
 Around the old familiar hearth.

Name not the dead, or if thou do,
 O name them not in strangers' ears,
They will not, cannot, weep with you,
 They sigh not at your sorrowing tears;
Name not the dead, O let their names
 Be sacred as their dreamless rest;
Or, if thou name them, let it be
 To those who knew and loved them best.