Cheerfulness Taught By Reason

I THINK we are too ready with complaint

In this fair world of God's. Had we no hope

Indeed beyond the zenith and the slope

Of yon gray blank of sky, we might grow faint

To muse upon eternity's constraint

Round our aspirant souls; but since the scope

Must widen early, is it well to droop,

For a few days consumed in loss and taint ?

O pusillanimous Heart, be comforted

And, like a cheerful traveller, take the road

Singing beside the hedge. What if the bread

Be bitter in thine inn, and thou unshod

To meet the flints ? At least it may be said

' Because the way is short, I thank thee, God. '

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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