Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806–1861)

ALL are not taken; there are left behind

Living Belovèds, 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?’