Patience Taught by Nature by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

View this email on a browser Forward to a friend April 5, 2015   Patience Taught by Nature   Elizabeth Barrett Browning

“O Dreary life!” we cry, “O dreary life!” And still the generations of the birds Sing through our sighing, and the flocks and herds Serenely live while we are keeping strife With Heaven’s true purpose in us, as a knife Against which we may struggle. Ocean girds Unslackened the dry land: savannah-swards Unweary sweep: hills watch, unworn; and rife Meek leaves drop yearly from the forest-trees, To show, above, the unwasted stars that pass In their old glory. O thou God of old! Grant me some smaller grace than comes to these;— But so much patience, as a blade of grass Grows by contended through the heat and cold.            This poem is in the public domain. About This Poem   “Patience Taught by Nature” was published in Browning’s book A Drama of Exile: and other poems (H. G. Langley, 1845).   Elizabeth Barrett Browning was born in 1806 at Coxhoe Hall, Durham, England. Her books include An Essay on Mind and Other Poems (1826), The Seraphim and Other Poems (1838), and Poems before Congress (1860). Browning died on June 29, 1861, in Florence. Poetry by Browning   Elizabeth Barret Browning: Selected Poems (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1988) "Poppies on the Wheat" by Helen Hunt Jackson "Pied Beauty" by Gerard Manley Hopkins "God’s World" by Edna St. Vincent Millay Read This Poem   For National Poetry Month, we’ve teamed up with 826 National to produce Read This Poem, a celebration of poets in cities with 826 chapters. Read this week's featured poems by poets from Boston, Chicago, Detroit, Los Angeles, New York City, San Francisco, and Washington D.C. Thanks for being a part of the Academy of American Poets community. To learn about other programs, including National Poetry Month, Poem in Your Pocket Day, the annual Poets Forum, and more, visit Poets.org.   You are receiving this e-mail because you elected to subscribe to our mailing list. If you would like to unsubscribe, please click here.   © Academy of American Poets 75 Maiden Lane, Suite 901, New York, NY 10038