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Poem by Elizabeth Barrett-Browning


Grief


I TELL you, hopeless grief is passionless;
That only men incredulous of despair,
Half-taught in anguish, through the midnight air
Beat upward to God's throne in loud access
Of shrieking and reproach. Full desertness,
In souls as countries, lieth silent-bare
Under the blanching, vertical eye-glare
Of the absolute Heavens. Deep-hearted man, express
Grief for thy Dead in silence like to death--
Most like a monumental statue set
In everlasting watch and moveless woe
Till itself crumble to the dust beneath.
Touch it; the marble eyelids are not wet:
If it could weep, it could arise and go. 

1815

Elizabeth Barrett-Browning


Elizabeth Barrett-Browning's other poems:
  1. The Holy Night
  2. Sonnets from the Portuguese. 11. And therefore if to love can be desert
  3. Sonnets from the Portuguese. 40. Oh, yes! they love through all this world of ours!
  4. Sonnets from the Portuguese. 25. A heavy heart, Belovëd, have I borne
  5. Sonnets from the Portuguese. 19. The soul’s Rialto hath its merchandize


Poems of the other poets with the same name:

  • George Herbert Grief ("O who will give me tears? Come, all ye springs")
  • Ella Wilcox Grief ("As the funeral train with its honoured dead")

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