Praise It – ’Tis Dead –

Praise It – ’Tis Dead – - meaning Summary

Praising What’s Gone

The poem addresses praise offered to something already dead and argues that verbal admiration cannot revive or warm it. The speaker suggests moving the object’s earned praise or essence into simpler, earthly receptacles—dust, alabaster—accepting that the subject has departed. There is a restrained, almost reverent tone that both releases the praised thing from further encomium and acknowledges loss with calm, formal distance.