Grief by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

"Grief" speaks about how each of us deal with grief. She states that deep-hearted men express it by silence, but refrains from telling specifically how others deal with it. However, Browning states that if the dead could cry, they would. Like most of Browning's writings, it's easy to tell that she was passionate about the subject matter. This poem is, most likely, a reference towards how she felt when her brother drowned.

"Grief" is a Petrachan sonnet that consists of fourteen lines with the rhyme scheme ABBAABBACDECDE.

I tell you, hopeless grief is passionless;That only men incredulous of despair,Half-taught in anguish, through the midnight airBeat upward to God's throne in loud accessOf shrieking and reproach. Full desertness,In souls as countries, lieth silent-bareUnder the blanching, vertical eye-glareOf the absolute Heavens. Deep-hearted man, expressGrief for thy Dead in silence like to death--Most like a monumental statue setIn everlasting watch and moveless woeTill itself crumble to the dust beneath.Touch it; the marble eyelids are not wet:If it could weep, it could arise and go.