| Alfred H. Miles, ed. Women Poets of the Nineteenth Century. 1907. | | | Miscellaneous Sonnets.
II. Bereavement | | By Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806–1861) |
| | | WHEN some Beloveds, ’neath whose eyelids lay | |
| The sweet lights of my childhood, one by one | |
| Did leave me dark before the natural sun, | |
| And I astonied fell and could not pray,— | |
| A thought within me to myself did say, | 5 |
| “Is God less God, that thou art left undone? | |
| Rise, worship, bless Him, in this sackcloth spun, | |
| As in that purple!”—But I answered, Nay! | |
| What child his filial heart in words can loose | |
| If he behold his tender father raise | 10 |
| The hand that chastens sorely? can he choose | |
| But sob in silence with an upward gaze?— | |
| And my great Father, thinking fit to bruise, | |
| Discerns in speechless tears both prayer and praise. | | | | |
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