Page:Elizabeth Barrett Browning (Ingram, 5th ed.).djvu/58

42 and although several days had elapsed since the accident, it was not in the least disfigured, and in the button-hole of his coat were still the flowers which he had worn when he started on the pleasure trip. The days still came and went, and again the sea cast forth its dead. It was not until the 4th of August that the body of Edward Barrett was discovered; it had been seen floating near the Great Rock, Torbay, and was picked up by a boatman and taken ashore. Mr. Barrett identified his son's body, a Coroner's verdict of "Accidentally Drowned" was returned, and the remains, together with those of Captain Clarke, and subsequently of William White, the pilot, were interred in the parish church of Tormohun, Torquay. Whether Charles Vanneck's body was ever found is doubtful.

The suspense was over, and "the sharp reality now must act its part." Nor money, nor genius, nor love were now of any avail, and the poor broken-hearted invalid, lying half senseless on her couch, had neither mind nor hearing for aught save the cruel sea beating upon the shore, and sounding, as she afterwards said, like nothing but a dirge for the untimely dead. "The sound of the waves rang in her ears like the moans of one dying."

For months Elizabeth Barrett hovered between life and death: "I being weak," as she said, "was struck down as by a bodily blow in a moment, without having time for tears." Everything that love and wealth could do for her was done, and time and nature both soothed and strengthened her in her affliction. Some slight reflex of her feelings may be gained from a perusal of her poem "De Profundis," published only after death had claimed her also. The earlier stanzas express the