When some beloved voice that was to you
Both sound and sweetness, faileth suddenly,
And silence, against which you dare not cry,
Aches round you like a strong disease and new -
What hope ? what help ? what music will undo
That silence to your sense ? Not friendship's sigh,
Not reason's subtle count; not melody
Of viols, nor of pipes that Faunus blew;
Not songs of poets, nor of nightingales
Whose hearts leap upward through the cypress-trees
To the clear moon; nor yet the spheric laws
Self-chanted, nor the angels' sweet 'All hails,'
Met in the smile of God: nay, none of these.
Speak Thou, availing Christ! - and fill this pause.
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• A Child Asleep
• A Dead Rose
• A Man's Requirements
• Musical Instrument
• A Sea-Side Walk
• A Thought For A Lonely Death-Bed
• Adequacy
• An Apprehension
• Change Upon Change
• Cheerfulness Taught By Reason
• Comfort
• Consolation
• De Profundis
• Discontent
• Exaggeration
• Futurity
• Grief
• How Do I Love Thee?
• Insufficiency
• Irreparableness
• Lord Walter's Wife
• Minstrelsy
• Pain In Pleasure
• Past And Future
• Patience Taught By Nature
• Perplexed Music
• Substitution
• Tears
• The Autumn
• The Best Thing In The World
• The Deserted Garden
• The House Of Clouds
• The Lady's Yes
• The Landing of Pilgrim Fathers
• The Look
• The Meaning Of The Look
• The Poet And The Bird
• The Prisoner
• The Seraph and Poet
• The Soul's Expression
• The Two Sayings
• The Weakest Thing
• To Flush, My Dog
• Work
• Work And Contemplation
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Elizabeth Barrett Browning Substitution - Poem Lyrics - Elizabeth Barrett Browning - Substitution
