The poem opens with a blunt, almost resigned statement: the dead do not come back. Misery is imagined as a figure sitting beside an open grave, calling out the names of family, friends, a lover — but the names are now empty, the people gone. The speaker addresses Misery directly, calling her “my sweetest friend,” and tells her to stop weeping, because he knows she cannot be consoled. He has seen her watch sunsets with the dead in brighter days, but now only tombs remain, and the familiar pain. The repeated final lines — “This most familiar scene, my pain— / These tombs—alone remain” — drive home the absolute stillness of loss. The mood is not frantic grief but a hollow, settled sorrow, a landscape where even the personified sadness has grown old and hoary. The speaker and Misery are locked together in a quiet, permanent mourning.
Death — Summary
They die--the dead return not--Misery Sits near an open grave and calls them over, A Youth with hoary hair and haggard eye-- They are the names of kindred, friend and lover, Which he so feebly calls--they all are gone-- Fond wretch, all dead! those vacant names alone, This most familiar scene, my pain-- These tombs--alone remain.
Misery, my sweetest friend--oh, weep no more! Thou wilt not be consoled--I wonder not! For I have seen thee from thy dwelling's door Watch the calm sunset with them, and this spot Was even as bright and calm, but transitory, And now thy hopes are gone, thy hair is hoary; This most familiar scene, my pain-- These tombs--alone remain.