been aware of our parting's approach, but she was quite conscious, had words at command, and yet did not even speak of Peni, who was in the next room. The last word was when I asked, 'How do you feel?' 'Beautiful.'"
The words of her own poem, "He Giveth His Beloved Sleep," were spoken by her husband over her open grave in Florence. Although, upon her husband's death and his burial in Westminster Abbey, it was proposed to lay her body there, beside his, this was not done, and at Florence, in a sarcophagus designed by Sir Frederick Leighton, hers still rests.
On the walls of Casa Guidi the town of Florence placed a marble slab inscribed by Tommaseo, the Italian poet, thus:
ELISABETTA BARRETT BROWNING
CHE IN CUORE DI DONNA CONCILIAVA
SCIENZA DI DOTTO E SPIRITO DI POETA
E FECE DEL SUO VERSO AUREO ANELLO
FRA ITALIA E INGHILTERRA.
PONE QUESTA LAPIDE
FIRENZE GRATA
1861.
Alluding to this rare gold ring of verse linking Italy and England, Robert Browning added the crowning memorial in 1868-1869 when he dedicated "The Ring and the Book" to his "Lyric Love," praying that his ring of verse might render hers duty and lie outside hers in guardianship.
