'Tis not with rude, irreverent feet,
I tread where sacred sorrows lie;
But gently raise, in accents meet,
My voice in earnest sympathy:
In sympathy with one bereaved,
Who mourns a loss which all deplore:
Whose grief by Hope is unrelieved—
For tears bring back the Past no more.

'Tis not in words the wound to heal
Which tenderest ties, when broken, make;
'Tis not in language to conceal
The griefs which snapped affection's wake
But sorrows, stinging though they be,
In sympathy some sweetness find,
Which may assuage, though slenderly,
The grief that clouds a manly mind.