Bliss Carman, et al., eds. The World’s Best Poetry.
Volume IV. The Higher Life. 1904. | | | | VII. Death: Immortality: Heaven | | The Prospect | | Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806–1861) |
| | | METHINKS we do as fretful children do, | |
| Leaning their faces on the window-pane | |
| To sigh the glass dim with their own breath’s stain, | |
| And shut the sky and landscape from their view; | |
| And, thus, alas! since God the maker drew | 5 |
| A mystic separation ’twixt those twain,— | |
| The life beyond us and our souls in pain,— | |
| We miss the prospect which we are called unto | |
| By grief we are fools to use. Be still and strong, | |
| O man, my brother! hold thy sobbing breath, | 10 |
| And keep thy soul’s large windows pure from wrong; | |
| That so, as life’s appointment issueth, | |
| Thy vision may be clear to watch along | |
| The sunset consummation-lights of death. | | | | |
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