WE overstate the ills of life, and take <br />Imagination (given us to bring down <br />The choirs of singing angels overshone <br />By God's clear glory) down our earth to rake <br />The dismal snows instead, flake following flake, <br />To cover all the corn; we walk upon <br />The shadow of hills across a level thrown, <br />And pant like climbers: near the alder brake <br />We sigh so loud, the nightingale within <br />Refuses to sing loud, as else she would. <br />O brothers, let us leave the shame and sin <br />Of taking vainly, in a plaintive mood, <br />The holy name of GRIEF !--holy herein <br />That by the grief of ONE came all our good.<br /><br />Elizabeth Barrett Browning<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/exaggeration/
