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Home  »  The Oxford Book of Victorian Verse  »  Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806–1861)

Arthur Quiller-Couch, comp. The Oxford Book of Victorian Verse. 1922.

The Best

Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806–1861)

WHAT ’S the best thing in the world?

June-rose, by May-dew impearl’d;

Sweet south-wind, that means no rain;

Truth, not cruel to a friend;

Pleasure, not in haste to end;

Beauty, not self-deck’d and curl’d

Till its pride is over-plain;

Light, that never makes you wink;

Memory, that gives no pain;

Love, when, so, you’re loved again.

What ’s the best thing in the world?

—Something out of it, I think.