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Home  »  The World’s Best Poetry  »  Two Sayings

Bliss Carman, et al., eds. The World’s Best Poetry. 1904.

I. The Divine Element—(God, Christ, the Holy Spirit)

Two Sayings

Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806–1861)

TWO sayings of the Holy Scriptures beat

Like pulses in the Church’s brow and breast;

And by them we find rest in our unrest,

And heart-deep in salt tears, do yet entreat

God’s fellowship, as if on heavenly seat.

The first is Jesus wept, whereon is prest

Full many a sobbing face that drops its best

And sweetest waters on the record sweet:

And one is, where the Christ denied and scorned

Looked upon Peter. Oh, to render plain,

By help of having loved a little and mourned,

That look of sovran love and sovran pain

Which he who could not sin yet suffered, turned

On him who could reject but not sustain!