Poem by Elizabeth Barrett-Browning

Insufficiency

When I attain to utter forth in verse
Some inward thought, my soul throbs audibly
Along my pulses, yearning to be free
And something farther, fuller, higher, rehearse
To the individual, true, and the universe,
In consummation of right harmony:
But, like a wind-exposed distorted tree,
We are blown against for ever by the curse
Which breathes through Nature. Oh, the world is weak !
The effluence of each is false to all,
And what we best conceive we fail to speak.
Wait, soul, until thine ashen garments fall,
And then resume thy broken strains, and seek
Fit peroration without let or thrall. 

1. Sonnets from the Portuguese. 20. Belovëd, my Belovëd, when I think
2. Sonnets from the Portuguese. 11. And therefore if to love can be desert
3. Sonnets from the Portuguese. 30. I see thine image through my tears to-night
4. Sonnets from the Portuguese. 12. Indeed this very love which is my boast
5. To Flush, My Dog

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