Henry Charles Beeching, ed. (1859–1919). Lyra Sacra: A Book of Religious Verse. 1903.
By Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1809–1861)The Prospect
| METHINKS we do as fretful children do, | |
| Leaning their faces on the window-pane | |
| To sigh the glass dim with their own breath’s stain, | |
| And shut the sky and landscape from their view; | |
| And thus, alas! since God the Maker drew | 5 |
| A mystic separation ’twixt those twain, | |
| The life beyond us, and our souls in pain, | |
| We miss the prospect which we are called unto, | |
| By grief we are fools to use. Be still and strong, | |
| O man, my brother, hold thy sobbing breath, | 10 |
| And keep thy soul’s large window pure from wrong, | |
| That so, as life’s appointment issueth, | |
| Thy vision may be clear to watch along | |
| The sunset consummation-lights of death. | |