Dear, my soul is grey With poring over the long sum of ill; So much for vice, so much for discontent... Coherent in statistical despairs With such a total of distracted life, To see it down in figures on a page, Plain, silent, clear, as God sees through the earth The sense of all the graves, - that’s terrible For one who is not God, and cannot right The wrong he looks on. May I choose indeed But vow away my years, my means, my aims, Among the helpers, if there’s any help In such a social strait? The common blood That swings along my veins, is strong enough To draw me to this duty.
-Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Aurora Leigh, 1856