Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806–1861)

WE sow the glebe, we reap the corn,

We build the house where we may rest,

And then, at moments, suddenly,

We look up to the great wide sky,

Inquiring wherefore we were born …

For earnest, or for jest?

The senses folding thick and dark

About the stifled soul within,

We guess diviner things beyond,

And yearn to them with yearning fond;

We strike out blindly to a mark

Believed in, but not seen.

We vibrate to the pant and thrill

Wherewith Eternity has curled

In serpent-twine about God’s seat;

While, freshening upward to his feet,

In gradual growth his full-leaved will

Expands from world to world.

And, in the tumult and excess

Of act and passion under sun,

We sometimes hear—oh, soft and far,

As silver star did touch with star,

The kiss of Peace and Righteousness

Through all things that are done.

God keeps His holy mysteries

Just on the outside of man’s dream.

In diapason slow, we think

To hear their pinions rise and sink,

While they float pure beneath His eyes,

Like swans adown a stream.

And, sometimes, horror chills our blood

To be so near such mystic Things,

And we wrap round us, for defence,

Our purple manners, moods of sense—

As angels, from the face of God,

Stand hidden in their wings.

And, sometimes, through life’s heavy swound

We grope for them!—with strangled breath

We stretch our hands abroad and try

To reach them in our agony,—

And widen, so, the broad life-wound

Which soon is large enough for death.