And weep the more, because I weep in vain.

I only know we loved in vain;
I only feel — farewell! farewell!

We laugh, but inept is our laughter;
We should weep and weep sore,
Who are shattered like glass, and thereafter
Re-moulded no more!

Away! we know that tears are vain,
That Death nor heeds nor hears distress:
Will this unteach us to complain?
Or make one mourner weep the less?
And thou — who tell’st me to forget,
Thy looks are wan, thine eyes are wet.

Translation: The memory of the blessings we have lost
Doth make our present state more pitiful.

Weep for what is lost forever.

We look before and after,
And pine for what is not;
Our sincerest laughter
With some pain is fraught;
Our sweetest songs are those that tell
Of saddest thought.

And this doth overpass all other pain,
To find that our last hope is all in vain.

Vain is the effort to forget.
Some day I shall be cold, I know,
As is the eternal moonlit snow
Of the high Alps, to which I go — But ah, not yet, not yet!

Vain is the agony of grief.
'Tis true, indeed, an iron knot
Ties straitly up from mine thy lot,
And were it snapt — thou lov'st me not!
But is despair relief?

Methinks we must have known some former state
More glorious than our present, and the heart
Is haunted with dim memories, shadows left
By past magnificence; and hence we pine
With vain aspirings, hopes that fill the eyes
With bitter tears for their own vanity.

I weep and strive, strive and weep

There is much to weep about. But it is a sin to permit our tears to drown out our song of gratitude and joy in the gift of creation.

How odd it is that we so often weep for each other’s distresses, when we shed not a tear for our own!

We look before and after,
And pine for what is not:
Our sincerest laughter
With some pain is fraught;
Our sweetest songs are those that tell
Of saddest thought.

Yet if we could scorn
Hate, and pride, and fear;
If we were things born
Not to shed a tear,
I know not how thy joy we ever
Should come near.