That what was mourned for, I, too, once had prized.

In the next stanza, the poet's oft-expressed belief in the wholesome,
antiseptic power of pessimism is reiterated, together with a hint,
that when we have once and for all put God in His grave, some better
way of bearing life's burden will be found, because the new way will
be based upon hard fact.

Still, how to bear such loss I deemed
The insistent question for each animate mind,
And gazing, to my growing sight there seemed
A pale yet positive gleam low down behind,

Whereof, to lift the general night,
A certain few who stood aloof had said,
"See you upon the horizon that small light--
Swelling somewhat?" Each mourner shook his head.

And they composed a crowd of whom
Some were right good, and many nigh the best....
Thus dazed and puzzled 'twixt the gleam and gloom
Mechanically I followed with the rest.

This pale gleam takes on a more vivid hue in a poem written shortly
after _God's Funeral_, called _A Plaint to Man_, where God
remonstrates with man for having created Him at all, since His life
was to be so short and so futile:

And tomorrow the whole of me disappears,
The truth should be told, and the fact he faced