I LOOKED on Sorrow, tragical and dread;
Beheld the anguish in her sunken eyes,
Which yearned no longer upward to the skies,—
As dumbly pleading to be comforted,—
But bent their blinded vision on the dead:
The dead removed—how far!—from human sighs,
Lying majestic, as a conqueror lies,
Indifferent to tears, so costly shed.

But as I pondered, seeking, soul-oppressed,
To read the riddle of a world like this—
Where Nature still seems waiting to destroy,
I saw immortal Love descend and kiss,
With timid wonder, reverent and blest,
The quivering eyelids and the lips of Joy!