I tell you, hopeless grief is passionless;
That only men incredulous of despair,
Half-taught in anguish, through the midnight air
Beat upward to God's throne in loud access
The first line is an assertive statement of opinion. ‘I tell you’ — unlike expectations of women at  the time. The view she voices is also a challenge to the conventional view of grief — that of external expression in the form of crying and wailing.