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Blog - Joyful
Curmudgeon - Blog
SUBSTITUTION – 17 December 2008
I found this poem by Elizabeth Barrett Browning in a book of
religious poetry published in 1926:
SUBSTITUTION
Elizabeth Barrett Browning
(6 March 1806–29 June 1861)
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.
For a large collection of poems and stories, visit:
http://www.all-creatures.org/poetrydir.html
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"Joyful Curmudgeon"
An oxymoron?
No! I see all the beauty of God's creation and I'm joyful. At the
same time, I see all the suffering and corruption going on in the
world, and feel called to help expose and end it so that we may have true
peace and compassion.Blog
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