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. 

1. Sonnets from the Portuguese. 20. Belovëd, my Belovëd, when I think
2. Sonnets from the portuguese. 31. Thou comest! all is said without a word
3. Sonnets from the Portuguese. 18. I never gave a lock of hair away
4. Sonnets from the Portuguese. 12. Indeed this very love which is my boast
5. A Year's Spinning

Ella Wilcox Grief ("As the funeral train with its honoured dead")

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