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After Great Pain A Formal Feeling Comes After great pain a formal feeling comes-- The nerves sit ceremonious like tombs; The stiff Heart questions--was it He that bore? And yesterday--or centuries before? The feet, mechanical, go round A wooden way Of ground, or air, or ought, Regardless grown, A quartz contentment, like a stone. This is the hour of lead Remembered if outlived, As freezing persons recollect the snow-- First chill, then stupor, then the …

…dealing with their loss in this next passage: "A Wooden way/ Regardless grown, / A Quartz contentment, like a stone--" To deal with their loss, the mourners have separated themselves from the rest of the world. Their reaction to this catastrophe has become one of denial, causing each to develop "A...contentment, like a stone--." In this really the whole process of death is shown. How we live, we die and then we mourn the death.