Poems of Sentiment and Imagination/The Heart's Requiem
THE HEART'S REQUIEM.
"A 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.
In one poor human heart
These thrilhng accents start,
And mingle into music wild and deep;
Swelling in one rich strain
Of earthly joy and pain,
Then trembling softly, die away to sleep.
O for earth's hapless trust!
Its "mingled mind and dust"
Make with each other such continual strife!
O for the hapless faith
That meets reward in death,
Mourning the bitter chilliness of life.
Earth, earth! thy sods have pressed
Lightly on many a breast
That could not bear its weight of living woe;
Full many a heart hath come
To thy embrace of gloom,
Blessing thy coldness to the world's false glow.
"One more, then, one more strain
To earthly joy and pain,
A rich, and deep, and passionate farewell!
Pour out each fervent thought
With fear, hope, trembling fraught,
Into the notes the last this heart shall swell."