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

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

Only A Curl

Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Simple Poetry

The Weakest Thing

Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Simple Poetry

The Runaway Slave At Pilgrim's Point

Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Simple Poetry

Exaggeration

Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Simple Poetry

English

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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

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

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

A Serenade At The Villa

I.
That was I, you heard last night,
When there rose no moon at all,
Nor, to pierce the strained and tight
Tent of heaven, a planet small:
Life was dead and so was light.

II.
Not a twinkle from the fly,
Not a glimmer from the worm;
When the crickets stopped their cry,
When the owls forbore a term,
You heard music; that was I.

III.
Earth turned in her sleep with pain,
Sultrily suspired for proof:
In at heaven and out again,
Lightning! where it broke the roof,
Bloodlike, some few drops of rain.

IV.
What they could my words expressed,
O my love, my all, my one!
Singing helped the verses best,
And when singings best was done,
To my lute I left the rest.

V.
So wore night; the East was gray,
...

Robert Browning

A Lovers Quarrel

I.

Oh, what a dawn of day!
How the March sun feels like May!
All is blue again
After last nights rain,
And the South dries the hawthorn-spray.
Only, my Loves away!
Id as lief that the blue were grey,

II.

Runnels, which rillets swell,
Must be dancing down the dell,
With a foaming head
On the beryl bed
Paven smooth as a hermits cell;
Each with a tale to tell,
Could my Love but attend as well.

III.

Dearest, three months ago!
When we lived blocked-up with snow,
When the wind would edge
In and in his wedge,
In, as far as the point could go,
Not to our ingle, though,
Where we loved each the other so!

IV.

Laughs with so little cause!
We devised games out of straws.
We...

Robert Browning

The Voice

As the kindling glances,
Queen-like and clear,
Which the bright moon lances
From her tranquil sphere
At the sleepless waters
Of a lonely mere,
On the wild whirling waves, mournfully, mournfully,
Shiver and die.

As the tears of sorrow
Mothers have shed
Prayers that tomorrow
Shall in vain be sped
When the flower they flow for
Lies frozen and dead
Fall on the throbbing brow, fall on the burning breast,
Bringing no rest.

Like bright waves that fall
With a lifelike motion
On the lifeless margin of the sparkling Ocean;
A wild rose climbing up a mouldering wall
A gush of sunbeams through a ruined hall
Strains of glad music at a funeral
So sad, and with so wild a start
To this deep-sobered heart,
So anxiously and pai...

Matthew Arnold