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
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
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?'

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Elizabeth Barrett Browning was an English poet of the Victorian era, celebrated for her romantic and passionate poetry. Born in 1806, she gained early fame with her collection 'Poems' in 1844, which caught the attention of fellow poet Robert Browning. The two poets married in 1846 and lived in Italy for most of their lives. Elizabeth's most famous work, 'Sonnets from the Portuguese,' explores her profound love for Robert. She died in 1861 and remains a significant figure in English literature.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Futurity

Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Simple Poetry

The Best Thing In The World

Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Simple Poetry

Cheerfulness Taught By Reason

Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Simple Poetry

Bianca Among The Nightingales

Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Simple Poetry

English

Suggested Poems

Explore a curated selection of verses that share themes, styles, and emotional resonance with the poem you've just read.

Substitution

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.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Comfort

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 mo 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.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

The Consolation

I Had this thought awhile ago,
My darling cannot understand
What I have done, or what would do
In this blind bitter land.

And I grew weary of the sun
Until my thoughts cleared up again,
Remembering that the best I have done
Was done to make it plain;

That every year I have cried, At length
My darling understands it all,
Because I have come into my strength,
And words obey my call.

That had she done so who can say
What would have shaken from the sieve?
I might have thrown poor words away
And been content to live.

William Butler Yeats

Only A Curl

I.
Friends of faces unknown and a land
Unvisited over the sea,
Who tell me how lonely you stand
With a single gold curl in the hand
Held up to be looked at by me,

II.
While you ask me to ponder and say
What a father and mother can do,
With the bright fellow-locks put away
Out of reach, beyond kiss, in the clay
Where the violets press nearer than you.

III.
Shall I speak like a poet, or run
Into weak woman's tears for relief?
Oh, children! I never lost one,
Yet my arm 's round my own little son,
And Love knows the secret of Grief.

IV.
And I feel what it must be and is,
When God draws a new angel so
Through the house of a man up to His,
With a murmur of music, you miss,
And a rapture of light, you forgo.
<...

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Discontent

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 inner-most
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,
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.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Futurity

And, O beloved voices, upon which
Ours passionately call because erelong
Ye brake off in the middle of that song
We sang together softly, to enrich
The poor world with the sense of love, and witch,
The heart out of things evil, I am strong,
Knowing ye are not lost for aye among

The hills, with last year's thrush. God keeps a niche
In Heaven to hold our idols; and albeit
He brake them to our faces and denied
That our close kisses should impair their white,
I know we shall behold them raised, complete,
The dust swept from their beauty, glorified
New Memnons singing in the great God-light.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning