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--
Nor 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.
--_Elizabeth Barrett Browning._