Poem by Elizabeth Barrett-Browning

Discontent

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. 

1. Sonnets from the Portuguese. 30. I see thine image through my tears to-night
2. To Flush, My Dog
3. Sonnets from the Portuguese. 20. Belovëd, my Belovëd, when I think
4. Sonnets from the Portuguese. 12. Indeed this very love which is my boast
5. Aurora Leigh. Ninth Book

Ella Wilcox Discontent ("Like a thorn in the flesh, like a fly in the mesh")

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