The following Poem was received by me from Mrs Elizabeth
Barrett Browning, a few copies of which I have had thus prepared
for a private circulation. I send this to you, feeling an assurance
that it will be valued, not alone for its merit, but also for the
incidents attendant upon its production.

Very Faithfully Yours,

Baltimore, June 10, 1861.

ONLY A CURL.

I.

Friends of faces unknown and a land
Unvisited over the sea,
Who tell me how lonely you stand,
With a single gold curl in the hand
Held up to be looked at by me!

II.

While you ask me to ponder and say
What a father and mother can do,
With the bright yellow locks put away
Out of reach, beyond kiss, in the clay,
Where the violets press nearer than you.

III.

Shall I speak like a poet, or run
Into weak woman's tears for relief?
Oh, children! I never lost one;
But my arms round my own little son,
And Love knows the secret of Grief.

IV.

And I feel what it must be and is
When God draws a new angel so
From the house of a man up to His,
With a murmur of music you miss,
And a rapture of light you forego.

V.

How you think, staring on at the door
Where the face of your angel flashed in,
That its brightness, familiar before,
Burns off from you ever the more
For the dark of your sorrow and sin.

VI.

"God lent him and takes him," you sigh;
Nay, there let me break with your pain.
God's generous in giving, say I,
And the thing which he gives, I deny
That He ever can take back again.

VII.

He gives what he gives. I appeal
To all who bear babes! In the hour
When the vail of the body we feel
Rent round us, while torments reveal
The motherhood's advent in power.

Rome, April 4, 1861.

VIII.

And the babe cries—have all of us known
By apocalypse (God being there,
Full in nature!) the child is *our own* —
Life of life, love of love, moan of moan,
Through all changes, all times, everywhere.

IX.

He's ours and for ever. Believe,
O father!—O mother, look back
To the first love's assurance! To give
Means, with God, not to tempt or deceive
With a cup thrust in Benjamin's sack.

X.

He gives what he gives: be content.
He resumes nothing given—be sure,
God lend ?—where the usurers lent
In His temple, indignant he went
And scourged away all those impure.

XI.

He lends not, but gives to the end,
As He loves to the end. If it seem
That He draws back a gift, comprehend
'Tis to add to it rather . . . amend,
And finish it up to your dream.

XII.

Or keep . . . as a mother may toys
Too costly, though given by herself,
Till the room shall be stiller from noise,
And the children more fit for such joys,
Kept over their heads on the shelf.

XIII.

So look up, friends! You who indeed
Have possessed in your house a sweet piece
Of the Heaven which men strive for, must need
Be more earnest than others are, speed
Where they loiter, persist where they cease.

XIV.

You know how one angel smiles there.
Then, courage! 'Tis easy for you
To be drawn by a single gold hair
Of that curl, from earth's storm and despair
To the safe place above us. Adieu!

ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING.