The Poetry Corner

Discontent

By Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Light human nature is too lightly tost And ruffled without cause, complaining on Restless with rest, until, being overthrown, It learneth to lie quiet. Let a frost Or a small wasp have crept to the inner-most Of our ripe peach, or let the wilful sun Shine westward of our window, straight we run A furlong's sigh as if the world were lost. But what time through the heart and through the brain God hath transfixed us, we, so moved before, Attain to a calm. Ay, shouldering weights of pain, We anchor in deep waters, safe from shore, And hear submissive o'er the stormy main God's chartered judgments walk for evermore.