A Thought For A Lonely Death-Bed

If God compel thee to this destiny,

To die alone, with none beside thy bed

To ruffle round with sobs thy last word said

And mark with tears the pulses ebb from thee,—

Pray then alone, ' O Christ, come tenderly !

By thy forsaken Sonship in the red

Drear wine-press,—by the wilderness out-spread,—

And the lone garden where thine agony

Fell bloody from thy brow,—by all of those

Permitted desolations, comfort mine !

No earthly friend being near me, interpose

No deathly angel 'twixt my face aud thine,

But stoop Thyself to gather my life's rose,

And smile away my mortal to Divine ! '

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Elizabeth Barrett Browning (born March 6, 1806, near Durham, Durham county, England—died June 29, 1861, Florence, Italy) English poet whose reputation rests chiefly upon her love poems, Sonnets from the Portuguese and Aurora Leigh, the latter now considered an early feminist text. Her husband was Robert Browning. Political and social themes embody Elizabeth’s later work. She expressed her intense sympathy for the struggle for the unification of Italy in Casa Guidi Windows (1848–51) and Poems Before Congress (1860). In 1857 Browning published her verse novel Aurora Leigh, which portrays male domination of a woman. In her poetry she also addressed the oppression of the Italians by the Austrians, the child labor mines and mills of England, and slavery, among other social injustices. Although this decreased her popularity, Elizabeth was heard and recognized around Europe. Elizabeth Barrett Browning died in Florence on June 29, 1861.

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