Arthur Quiller-Couch, ed. 1919. The Oxford Book of English Verse: 1250–1900.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning. 18061861680. Consolation
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 | 5 |
No love in all this world for comforting, | |
Nor any path but hollowly did ring | |
Where ‘dust to dust’ the love from life disjoin’d; | |
And if, before those sepulchres unmoving | |
I stood alone (as some forsaken lamb | 10 |
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?’ |