e lost. Although everything living will die at some point, that does not mean that the deceased should be abandoned or disregarded. The memory and continual love for the deceased is often a more effective way to cope with the loss. Harboring a fear of death causes a life without vivacity and love, and replaces it with a fear of losing more, as seen in the narrator's case.This one dream caused the speaker to process his situation and come to terms with how he had lived his life. Unsure of whether he can be forgiven for his coldness towards the dead, nonetheless hopeful that he can be, he begs for mercy and pardon. He knows that in actuality, to live with love, one must "mourn the dead" (line 24) and not repress loss. He pleads with "death" (symbolized by his dog in the dream) to forgive him, as he knows that death is what he has offended most by completely closing it out from his mind. Understanding what he had done wrong, the narrator can now care more freely and live more positively. He can "mourn the dead." More importantly, he can love past the event of death, knowing that it is only the natural course of all existing individuals. We too would feel the need to beg for pardon. We all yearn to love, so in the final line, when the narrator tells us that he has learned to mourn the dead, we can identify with that, as we would as well.As a whole, this poem exemplifies a journey from innocence to reality over the course of many years. The poem is also the recognition that death is not an endpoint. The shock of death impacted the inexperienced young boy so greatly that he was caused to live an entire life through the eyes of an innocent ten-year-old who did not know of loving or mourning. Until his dream, the narrator was denying of death. One single experience, however supernatural as it may have been, exposed the man to reality and changed his views forever. The knowledge that life can be found within death caused the autho...
