GRIEF
by: Elizabeth Barrett Browning
(1806-1861)
- 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 dust beneath.
- Touch it; the marble eyelids are not wet:
- If it could weep, it could arise and go.
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