She never found fault with you, never implied
Your wrong by her right; and yet men at her side
Grew nobler, girls purer, as thro' the whole town
The children were gladder that pull'd at her gown—
My Kate.
None knelt at her feet confess'd lovers in thrall;
They knelt more to God than they used,—that was all:
If you praised her as charming, some ask'd what you meant.
But the charm of her presence was felt when she went—
My Kate.
The weak and the gentle, the ribald and rude,
She took as she found them, and did them all good;
It always was so with her—see what you have!
She has made the grass greener even here with her grave—
My Kate.
My dear one!—When thou wast alive with the rest,
I held thee the sweetest and loved thee the best:
And now thou art dead, shall I not take thy part
As thy smiles used to do for thyself, my sweet Heart—
My Kate?
—Elizabeth Barrett Browning
There is no friend like an old friend
Who has shared our morning days,
No greeting like his welcome,
No homage like his praise.
Fame is the scentless sunflower,
With gaudy crown of gold;
But friendship is the breathing rose
With sweets in every fold.
—Oliver Wendell Holmes
Grief
I tell you, hopeless grief is passionless;
That only men incredulous of despair,
Half taught in anguish, through the midnight air
Beat upward to God's throne in loud excess
Of shrieking and reproach. Full desertness
In soul as countries lieth silent-bare
Under the blanching, vertical eye-glare
Of the absolute Heavens. Deep-hearted man, express
Grief for thy Dead in silence like to death—
Most like a monumental statue set
In everlasting watch and moveless woe
Till itself crumble to the dust beneath.
Touch it; the marble eyelids are not wet:
If it could weep, it could arise and go.
—Elizabeth Barrett Browning