Beloved

By Michael Field Michael Field

Mortal, if thou art beloved

Life's offences are removed;

All the fateful things that checked thee,

Hearten, hallow, and protect thee.

Grow'st thou mellow? What is age?

Tinct on life's illumined page,

Where the purple letters glow

Deeper, painted long ago.

What is sorrow? Comfort's prime,

Love's choice Indian summer clime.

Sickness!—thou wilt pray it worse

For so blessed, balmy nurse.

And for death! when thou art dying

'Twill be Love beside thee lying.

Death is lonesome? Oh, how brave

Shows the foot-frequented grave!

Heaven itself is but the casket

For Love's treasure, ere he ask it,—

Ere with burning heart he follow,

Piercing through corruption's hollow.

If thou art beloved, oh then

Fear no grief from mortal men.

Biography

Under the pseudonym Michael Field, Katherine Harris Bradley and her niece Edith Emma Cooper collaboratively published eight books of poetry and twenty-seven plays in late 19th-century Britain. The two women enjoyed a warm reception as Field in Victorian literary circles upon the release of their first major verse drama, Callirhoë and Fair Rosamond (1884), even garnering the admiration of Walter Pater, George Meredith, and Robert . . .

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