Elizabeth Barrett Browning's Poetical Works, Volume 2 |
Common terms and phrases
adown angels Art thou beneath beside blessed breath bride bright brow calm cheek child childhood cloud cold crown curse dark dead dear deep doth dream drop dropt earth evermore eyes face fair Faunus FELICIA HEMANS flowers GEORGE SAND glory God's GOETHE grass grave grief hand harken hath head hear heart heaven hills holy idlesse kiss knee lady laugh light lips little birds sang look man's MARY RUSSELL MITFORD measured music moan mother neath night nosegay o'er ocean pale poet praise pray river floweth rosary rose rose-tree round sate scorn second sight shadow shining sigh silence singing smile softly song soul sound spake speak spirits stars steed sweet tears thee thine thought thrush Toll slowly trees twixt unto VIII vision voice vow to thee weary ween weep wind word world gone wrong young
Popular passages
Page 155 - They look up with their pale and sunken faces, And their look is dread to see. For they mind you of their angels in high places, With eyes turned on Deity. " How long," they say, " how long, O cruel nation, Will you stand, to move the world on a child's heart, — Stifle down with a mailed heel its palpitation, And tread onward to your throne amid the mart ? Our blood splashes upward, O goldheaper, And your purple shows your path ! But the child's sob in the silence curses deeper Than the strong...
Page 151 - Turns the long light that droppeth down the wall, Turn the black flies that crawl along the ceiling, All are turning, all the day, and we with all. And all day the iron wheels are droning, And sometimes we could pray, " O ye wheels " (breaking out in a mad moaning), " Stop ! be silent for to-day ! "
Page 274 - 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....
Page 268 - ALL are not taken ; there are left behind Living Beloveds, 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 the world for comforting, Nor any path but hollowly did ring Where
Page 152 - When we sob aloud, the human creatures near us Pass by, hearing not, or answer not a word. And we hear not (for the wheels in their resounding) Strangers speaking at the door: Is it likely God, with angels singing round him, Hears our weeping any more? Two words, indeed, of praying we remember, And at midnight's hour of harm, "Our Father," looking upward in the chamber, We say softly for a charm.
Page 93 - Yes, and he too ! let him stand In thy thoughts untouched by blame. Could he help it, if my hand He had claimed with hasty claim ? That was wrong perhaps — but then Such things be — and will, again.
Page 116 - Of the little children from the schools, seen winding through the meadow, Of the poor rich world beyond them, still kept poorer by its scorn. So, of men, and so, of letters — books are men of higher stature, And the only men that speak aloud for future times to hear ; So, of mankind in the abstract, which grows slowly into nature, Yet will lift the cry of "progress," as it trod from sphere to sphere.
Page 152 - Let them touch each other's hands, in a fresh wreathing Of their tender human youth ! Let them feel that this cold metallic motion Is not all the life God fashions or reveals — Let them prove their...
Page 148 - Which is lost in Long Ago ; The old tree is leafless in the forest, The old year is ending in the frost, The old wound, if stricken, is the sorest, The old hope is hardest to be lost...
Page 150 - With your ear down, little Alice never cries ! — Could we see her face, be sure we should not know her, For the smile has time for growing in her eyes ! And merry go her moments, lulled and stilled in The shroud, by the kirk-chime ! It is good when it happens,' say the children,