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Home  »  The Book of Sorrow  »  Emma Lazarus (1849–1887)

Andrew Macphail, comp. The Book of Sorrow. 1916.

A Symphonic Study

Emma Lazarus (1849–1887)

HARK! from unfathomable deeps a dirge

Swells sobbing through the melancholy air:

Where Love has entered, Death is also there.

The wail outrings the chafed, tumultuous surge;

Ocean and earth, the illimitable skies,

Prolong one note, a mourning for the dead,

The cry of souls not to be comforted.

What piercing music! Funeral visions rise,

And send the hot tears raining down our cheek.

We see the silent grave upon the hill

With its lone lilac-bush. O heart, be still!

She will not rise, she will not stir nor speak.

Surely, the unreturning dead are blest.

Ring on, sweet dirge, and knell us to our rest!