Henry Charles Beeching, ed. (1859–1919). Lyra Sacra: A Book of Religious Verse. 1903.
By Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1809–1861)Substitution
| WHEN some beloved voice, that was to you | |
| Both sound and sweetness, faileth suddenly, | |
| And silence against which you dare not cry | |
| Aches round you like a strong disease and new— | |
| What hope? what help? what music will undo | 5 |
| That silence to your sense? Not friendship’s sigh, | |
| Not reason’s subtle count; not melody | |
| Of viols, nor of pipes that Faunus blew; | |
| Not songs of poets, nor of nightingales, | |
| Whose hearts leap upward through the cypress trees | 10 |
| To the clear moon! nor yet the spheric laws | |
| Self-chanted, nor the angels’ sweet All hails, | |
| Met in the smile of God. Nay, none of these. | |
| Speak THOU, availing Christ! and fill this pause. | |