Consolation

Consolation

All are not taken; there are left behind

Living Belovèds, tender looks to bring

And make the daylight still a happy thing,

And tender voices, to make soft the wind:

But if it were not so—if I could find

No love in all this world for comforting,

Nor any path but hollowly did ring

Where dust to dust the love from life disjoind;

And if, before those sepulchres unmoving

I stood alone (as some forsaken lamb

Goes bleating up the moors in weary dearth)

Crying Where are ye, O my loved and loving?—

I know a voice would sound, Daughter, I AM.

Can I suffice for Heaven and not for earth?

Elizabeth Barrett Browning