O May I Join the Choir Invisible! and Other Favorite Poems

George Eliot is widely recognized as one of the most important writers of the nineteenth century; yet her two volumes of poetry are often ignored in modern critical assessments.

Nonetheless, in all her poems there are passages of strength and beauty, characteristic of her teaching, which have become part of the living body of modern literature. But perhaps the most complete and satisfying expression, at once of her creed and her aspirations, is to be found in the oft-quoted fragment, of which the second and third lines are quoted on her tombstone in Highgate Cemetery:—

"O may I join the choir invisible
Of those immortal dead who live again
In minds made better by their presence...reach
That purest heaven, be to other souls
The cup of strength in some great agony,
Enkindle generous ardor, feed pure love,
Beget the smiles that have no cruelty.
So shall I join the choir invisible
Whose music is the gladness of the world."