The tears shed by the widower, when he wakes from a dream of his deceased
wife, and "moves his doubtful arms" to find her place empty; are like the
tears he himself is weeping over "a loss for ever new," a terrible void
where there had been social intercourse, and a "silence" that will never
be broken. For he is lamenting
"the comrade of my choice,
An awful thought, a life removed,
The human-hearted man I loved,
A Spirit, not a breathing voice."
Hallam is now only a remembrance--no longer endowed with bodily functions,
and the survivor cannot quite accept what has happened.
He therefore asks Time to teach him "many years"--for years to come--the
real truth, and make him feel that these strange things, over which his
tears are shed, are not merely a prolonged dream; and he begs that his
fancies, hovering over the approaching ship, may quite realise that it
brings no ordinary freight, but actually the mortal remains of his friend.