Thomas Humphry Ward, ed. The English Poets. 1880–1918.rnVol. IV. The Nineteenth Century: Wordsworth to Rossetti

Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806–1861)

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.