Grief
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Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806-1861) began writing as a young girl in Durham, England. Despite a nervous collapse, a period of grief occasioned by . . . MORE »
Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806-1861) began writing as a young girl in Durham, England. Despite a nervous collapse, a period of grief occasioned by . . . MORE »
By Elizabeth Barrett Browning
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
Of shrieking and reproach. Full desertness,
In souls as countries, lieth silent-bare
Under the blanching, vertical eye-glare
Of the absolute heavens. Deep-hearted man, express
Grief for thy dead in silence like to death—
Most like a monumental statue set
In everlasting watch and moveless woe
Till itself crumble to the dust beneath.
Touch it; the marble eyelids are not wet:
If it could weep, it could arise and go.