From ‘The Soul’s Travelling’

by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

    God, God!
    With a child’s voice I cry,
    Weak, sad, confidingly,
    God, God!
    Thou knowest, eyelids, raised not always up
    Unto Thy love (as none of ours are), droop
    As ours, o’er many a tear!
    Thou knowest, though Thy universe is broad,
    Two little tears suffice to cover all:
    Thou knowest, Thou, who art so prodigal
    Of beauty, we are oft but stricken deer
    Expiring in the woods, that care for none
    Of those delightsome flowers they die upon.

    O blissful Mouth which breathed the mournful breath
    We name our souls, self-spoilt! by that strong passion
    Which paled Thee once with sighs, by that strong death
    Which made Thee once unbreathing, from the wrack
    Themselves have called around them, call them back,
    Back to Thee in continuous aspiration!
    For here, O Lord,
    For here they travel vainly, vainly pass
    From city-pavement to untrodden sward,
    Where the lark finds her deep nest in the grass
    Cold with the earth’s last dew. Yea, very vain
    The greatest speed of all these souls of men
    Unless they travel upward to the throne
    Where sittest THOU, the satisfying ONE,
    With help for sins and holy perfectings
    For all requirements, while the archangel, raising
    Unto Thy face his full ecstatic gazing,
    Forgets the rush and rapture of his wings.