Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Alfred H. Miles, ed. Women Poets of the Nineteenth Century. 1907.

By Miscellaneous Sonnets. II. Bereavement

Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806–1861)

WHEN some Beloveds, ’neath whose eyelids lay

The sweet lights of my childhood, one by one

Did leave me dark before the natural sun,

And I astonied fell and could not pray,—

A thought within me to myself did say,

“Is God less God, that thou art left undone?

Rise, worship, bless Him, in this sackcloth spun,

As in that purple!”—But I answered, Nay!

What child his filial heart in words can loose

If he behold his tender father raise

The hand that chastens sorely? can he choose

But sob in silence with an upward gaze?—

And my great Father, thinking fit to bruise,

Discerns in speechless tears both prayer and praise.