Tearless grief bleeds inwardly.

Bovee’s aphorism contrasts visible mourning with grief that cannot—or will not—find outward expression. If tears are a natural release, then “tearless” sorrow is imagined as turning back on the self, becoming a kind of internal wound: it “bleeds inwardly.” The line suggests that stoicism, repression, or social constraint may intensify suffering rather than diminish it, because the pain has no outlet and therefore corrodes privately. It also implies a moral or psychological warning: the absence of tears is not evidence of shallow feeling; it may signal a deeper, more dangerous hurt that remains unseen.