Insufficiency

Insufficiency

When I attain to utter forth in verse

Some inward thought, my soul throbs audibly

Along my pulses, yearning to be free

And something farther, fuller, higher, rehearse

To the individual, true, and the universe,

In consummation of right harmony:

But, like a wind-exposed distorted tree,

We are blown against for ever by the curse

Which breathes through Nature. Oh, the world is weak !

The effluence of each is false to all,

And what we best conceive we fail to speak.

Wait, soul, until thine ashen garments fall,

And then resume thy broken strains, and seek

Fit peroration without let or thrall.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning