Consolation

by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

ALL are not taken! there are left behind
Living Beloveds, tender looks to bring,
And make the daylight still a happy thing,
And tender voices, to make soft the wind.
But if it were not so -- if I could find
No love in all the world for comforting,
Nor any path but hollowly did ring,
Where dust to dust the love from life disjoined --
And if before those sepulchres unmoving
I stood alone, (as some forsaken lamb
Goes bleating up the moors in weary dearth)
Crying Where are ye, O my loved and loving? . . .
I know a Voice would sound, Daughter, I AM.
Can I suffice for HEAVEN, and not for earth?

Source:

The Poems Of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume 1
Copyright 1853
C. S. Francis & Co., 262 Broadway, New York
Crosby & Nichols, Boston
 

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