On grief
[Real sorrow] ends neither with a bang nor a whimper.
Sometimes, after a spiritual journey like Dante’s, down to the centre and then, terrace by terrace,
up the mountain of accepted pain,
it may rise into peace—but a peace hardly less severe than itself.
Sometimes it remains for life, a puddle in the mind //which grows always wider, shallower, and more unwholesome.
Sometimes it just peters out, as other moods do.
One of these alternatives has grandeur, but not tragic grandeur.
* peter out. to gradually become smaller, quieter, etc. and then end.
From An Experiment in Criticism
Compiled in Words to Live By