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Home  »  The Oxford Book of English Verse  »  680. Consolation

Arthur Quiller-Couch, ed. 1919. The Oxford Book of English Verse: 1250–1900.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning. 1806–1861

680. 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?’