Thursday, February 7, 2008


Deserted! who hath dreamt that when the cross in darkness rested,
Upon the victim's hidden face, no love was manifested?
What frantic hands outstretched have e'er the atoning drops averted,
What tears have washed them from the soul, that one should be deserted?

Deserted! God could separate from His own essence rather:
And Adam's sins have swept between the righteous Son and Father;
Yea, once Immanuel's orphaned cry, his universe hath shaken_
It went up single, echoless. "My God I am forsaken!"

It went up from the Holy's lips amid his lost creation,
That of the lost, no son should use those words of desolation;
That earth's worst phrenzies, marring hope should mar not hopes fruition,
And I on Cowper's grave, should see his rapture in a vision. 
                                               -From "Cowper's Grave" by Elizabeth Barret Browning.

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