Consolation

by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

    All are not taken; there are left behind
    Living Belovèds, tender looks to bring
    And make the daylight still a happy thing,
    And tender voices, to make soft the wind:
    But if it were not so, if I could find
    No love in all this world for comforting,
    Nor any path but hollowly did ring
    Where 'dust to dust' the love from life disjoin'd;
    And if, before those sepulchres unmoving
    I stood alone (as some forsaken lamb
    Goes bleating up the moors in weary dearth)
    Crying 'Where are ye, O my loved and loving?'
    I know a voice would sound, 'Daughter, I am.
    Can I suffice for Heaven and not for earth?'