Poet: Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Thank God, bless God, all ye who suffer not
More grief than ye can weep for. That is well, -
That is light grieving! lighter, none befell,
Since Adam forfeited the primal lot
Tears! what are tears? The babe weeps in its cot,
The mother singing; at her marriage-bell,
The bride weeps; and before the oracle
Of high-fined hills, the poet hath forgot
That moisture on his cheeks. Thank God for grace,
Whoever weep; albeit, as some have done,
Ye grope tear-blinded, in a desert place,
And touch but tombs, — look up! Those tears will run
Soon, in long rivers, down the lifted face,
And leave the vision clear for stars and sun.
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Poet: Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Experience, like a pale musician, holds
A dulcimer of patience in his hand;
Whence harmonies we cannot understand
Of God's will in his worlds, the strain unfolds
In sad, perplexed minors. Deathly colds
Fall on us while we hear, and countermand
Our sanguine heart back from the fancy-land,
With nightingales in visionary wolds.
We murmur, "Where is any certain tune,
Or measured music, in such notes as these?"
But angels, leaning from the golden seat,
Are not so minded! Their fine ear hath won
The issue of completed cadences;
And smiling down the stars, they whisper, "Sweet"
More Christian Poems by other Poets
Poet: Elizabeth Barrett Browning
I think we are too ready with complaint
In this fair world of God's. Had we no hope
Indeed beyond the zenith and the slope
Of yon grey blank of sky, we might grow faint
To muse upon eternity's constraint
Round our aspirant souls; but since the scope
Must widen early, is it well to droop.
For a few days consumed in loss and taint?
O pusillanimous Heart, be comforted
And, like a cheerful traveller, take the road,
Singing beside the hedge. What if the bread
Be bitter in thine inn, and thou unshod
To meet the flints? At least it may be said
"'Because the way is short, I thank thee, God."
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Poet: Elizabeth Barrett Browning
The woman singeth at her spinning-wheel
A pleasant chant, ballad or barcarole;
She thinketh of her song, upon the whole.
Far more than of her flax; and yet the reel
Is full, and artfully her fingers feel
With quick adjustment, provident control.
The lines - too subtly twisted to unroll -
Out to a perfect thread. I hence appeal
To the dear Christian Church- that we may do
Our Father's business in these temples mirk,
Thus swift and steadfast, thus intent and strong;
While thus, apart from toil, our souls pursue
Some high calm spheric tune, and prove our work
The better for the sweetness of our song.
More Poems of Encouragement by other Poets
Poet: Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Light human nature is too lightly tost
And ruffled without cause, complaining on -
Restless with rest, until, being overthrown.
It learneth to lie quiet. Let a frost
Or a small wasp have crept to the innermost
Of our ripe peach, or let the wilful sun
Shine westward of our window, - straight we run
A furlong's sigh as if the world were lost.
But what time through the heart and through the brain
God hath transfixed us, - we, so moved before, lo
Attain to a calm. Ay, shouldering weights of pain.
We anchor in deep waters, safe from shore.
And hear submissive o'er the stormy main
God's chartered judgments walk for evermore.
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Poet: Elizabeth Barrett Browning
My future will not copy fair my past
On any leaf but Heaven's. Be fully done.
Supernal Will! I would not fain be one
Who, satisfying thirst and breaking fast.
Upon the fulness of the heart at last
Says no grace after meat. My wine has run
Indeed out of my cup, and there is none
To gather up the bread of my repast
Scattered and trampled; yet I find some good
In earth's green herbs, and streams that bubble up
Clear from the darkling ground, - content until
I sit with angels before better food:
Dear Christ! when Thy new vintage fulls my cup.
This hand shall shake no more, nor that wine spill.
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Poet: Elizabeth Barrett Browning
I have been in the meadows all the day
And gathered there the nosegay that you see.
Singing within myself as bird or bee
When such do field-work on a morn of May.
But, now I look upon my flowers, decay
Has met them in my hands more fatally
Because more warmly clasped, - and sobs are free
To come instead of songs. What do you say.
Sweet counsellors, dear friends? that I should go
Back straightway to the fields and gather more?
Another, sooth, may do it, but not I!
My heart is very tired, my strength is low.
My hands are full of blossoms plucked before.
Held dead within them till myself shall die.
More Poetry about Life and Death by other Poets
Poet: Elizabeth Barrett Browning
When some beloved voice that was to you
Both sound and sweetness, faileth suddenly.
And silence, against which you dare not cry.
Aches round you like a strong disease and new -
What hope? what help? what music will undo
That silence to your sense? Not friendship's sigh.
Not reason's subtle count; not melody
Of viols, nor of pipes that Faunus blew;
Not songs of poets, nor of nightingales
Whose hearts leap upward through the cypress-trees
To the clear moon; nor yet the spheric laws
Self-chanted, nor the angels' sweet "All hails,"
Met in the smile of God: nay, none of these.
Speak Thou, availing Christ! - and fill this pause.
More Poems About God by other Poets
Poet: Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Speak low to me, my Saviour, low and sweet
From out the hallelujahs, sweet and low,
Lest I should fear and fall, and miss Thee so
Who art not missed by any that entreat.
Speak to me as to Mary at Thy feet!
And if no precious gums my hands bestow.
Let my tears drop like amber while I go
In reach of Thy divinest voice complete
In humanest affection - thus, in sooth.
To lose the sense of losing. As a child,
Whose song-bird seeks the wood for evermore.
Is sung to in its stead by mother's mouth
Till, sinking on her breast, love-reconciled.
He sleeps the faster that he wept before.
More Poems About Jesus by other Poets
Poet: Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Two sayings of the Holy Scriptures beat
Like pulses in the Church's brow and breast;
And by them we find rest in our unrest
And, heart-deep in salt tears, do yet entreat
God's fellowship as if on heavenly seat.
The first is Jesus wept, - whereon is prest
Full many a sobbing face that drops its best
And sweetest waters on the record sweet:
And one is where the Christ, denied and scorned,
Looked upon Peter. Oh, to render plain,
By help of having loved a little and mourned.
That look of sovran love and sovran pain
Which He, who could not sin yet suffered, turned
On him who could reject but not sustain!
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Poet: Elizabeth Barrett Browning
A thought lay like a flower upon mine heart.
And drew around it other thoughts like bees
For multitude and thirst of sweetnesses;
Whereat rejoicing, I desired the art
Of the Greek whistler, who to wharf and mart
Could lure those insect swarms from orange-trees.
That I might have with me such thoughts and please
My soul so, always. Foolish counterpart
Of a weak man's vain wishes! While I spoke,
The thought I called a flower grew nettle-rough,
The thoughts, called bees, stung me to festering:
Oh, entertain (cried Reason as she woke)
Your best and gladdest thoughts but long enough.
And they will all prove sad enough to sting!
More Positive Thoughts