Page:Oxford Book of English Verse 1250-1918.djvu/844

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��ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING

686 Grief

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 heth 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.

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��68 j A Musical Instrument

rHAT was he doing, the great god Pan, Down in the reeds by the rivei : Spreading rum and scattering ban, Splashing and paddling with hoofs of a goat, And breaking the golden lilies afloat With the dragon-fly on the river.

He toie out a reed, the great god Pan, From the deep cool bed of the river ; The limpid water turbidly ran, And the broken lilies a-dymg lay, And the dragon-fly had fled away,

Ere he brought it out of the river.

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