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Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s “Grief” · The Daily Poem

• 0:00
  [music]
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  SPEAKER_00: Welcome back to The Daily Poem, a podcast from Goldberry Studios.
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  SPEAKER_00: I'm Sean Johnson, and today is Wednesday, September 2nd, 2026.
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  SPEAKER_00: Today's poem is by Elizabeth Barrett Browning.
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  SPEAKER_00: It's called Grief.
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  SPEAKER_00: I'll read it once, offer a few comments, and read it one more time.
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  SPEAKER_00: Grief.
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  SPEAKER_00: I tell you, hopeless grief is passionless.
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  SPEAKER_00: That only men incredulous of despair,
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  SPEAKER_00: half-taught in anguish through the midnight air beat upward to God's throne
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  SPEAKER_00: in loud access of shrieking and reproach.
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  SPEAKER_00: Full desertness in souls as countries lieth silent bare under
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  SPEAKER_00: the blanching vertical eye glare of the absolute heavens.
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  SPEAKER_00: Deep-hearted man, express grief for thy dead in silence like death.
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  SPEAKER_00: Most like a monumental statue set in everlasting watch
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  SPEAKER_00: and moveless woe till itself crumble to the dust beneath.
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  SPEAKER_00: Touch it, the marble eyelids are not wet.
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  SPEAKER_00: If it could weep, it could arise and go.
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  SPEAKER_00: The sonnet form and meter work really well with this poem and subject matter
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  SPEAKER_00: because they keep a firm structure and And also the regularity of
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  SPEAKER_00: the meter prevents any kind of linguistic outburst.
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  SPEAKER_00: It's all even and consistent.
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  SPEAKER_00: And the argument of the speaker is that that is also what the demeanor of the mourner should be.
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  SPEAKER_00: That loud grief is incomplete grief.
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  SPEAKER_00: Or maybe even performative grief.
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  SPEAKER_00: That there's something about true and complete grief and mourning that exhausts
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  SPEAKER_00: the emotional energy of the mourner.
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  SPEAKER_00: Such that their outward expressions are out of sync with their inward reality.
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  SPEAKER_00: And this culminates in the logic of the final image or simile.
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  SPEAKER_00: The instruction to mourn as a statue,
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  SPEAKER_00: and not just any statue,
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  SPEAKER_00: a monumental statue,
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  SPEAKER_00: that your mourning should be a kind of monument to the one who's gone.
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  SPEAKER_00: And statues can't cry.
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  SPEAKER_00: And the moment this statue sheds a tear in grief, it ceases to be that monumental statue.
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  SPEAKER_00: And maybe this is the hidden rationale of this poem.
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  SPEAKER_00: The kind of grief being described here is the kind of grief that can be carried along with you.
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  SPEAKER_00: A loud, noisy grief is one that can't really be expressed in perpetuity.
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  SPEAKER_00: Life and your fellow humans won't tolerate that, even if in the moment they expect it.
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  SPEAKER_00: But here the poet or the speaker makes allowance for the kind of grief that becomes
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  SPEAKER_00: a permanent possession,
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  SPEAKER_00: a permanent part of you,
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  SPEAKER_00: colonizing some internal country within your soul
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  SPEAKER_00: where this monumental statue will stand forever.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_00: Here's the poem one more time.
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  SPEAKER_00: I tell you, hopeless grief is passionless.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_00: That only men incredulous of despair,
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_00: half-taught in anguish,
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_00: through the midnight air beat upward to God's throne in loud access of shrieking
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_00: and reproach,
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_00: full desertness in souls as countries,
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_00: lieth silent bare under the blanching vertical eye glare of the absolute heavens.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_00: Deep-hearted man, express grief for thy dead in silence like to death.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_00: Most like a monumental statue set in everlasting watch
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_00: and moveless woe till itself crumble to the dust beneath.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_00: Touch it.
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  SPEAKER_00: The marble eyelids are not wet.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_00: If it could weep, it could arise and go.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_00: This has been The Daily Poem.
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  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for listening.
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  SPEAKER_00: We'll be back tomorrow with one of our subscriber episodes and then here on
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_00: the main channel on Friday.
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  SPEAKER_00: Till then,
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  SPEAKER_00: you can always visit us at dailypoempod.substack.com to listen to past episodes of
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_00: The Daily Poem, to share your own thoughts, or to subscribe and support the show.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_00: For all of us at Goldberry Studios, I'm Sean Johnson wishing you happy readings.