If any vague wish visits the Poet, that he had himself been the first to
be removed by Death (when the dust would have dropt on "tearless eyes,"
which, as it is, have now so sorely wept over Hallam's departure); then
the grief of the survivor would have been
"as deep as life or thought,
But stay'd in peace with God and man;"
because Hallam would have found comfort in pious resignation.
So he minutely ponders over this holy submission, and invokes contentment
from the contemplation--
"Unused example from the grave
Reach out dead hands to comfort me."