Elizabeth Barrett Browning - Sonnets from the Portuguese (1850)

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How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.
I love thee to the level of everyday's
Most quiet need, by sun and candlelight.
I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;
I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.
I love thee with the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints,—I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life! —and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

First time he kissed me, he but only kissed
The fingers of this hand wherewith I write,
And, ever since, it grew more clean and white,...

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

When the dust of death has choked a great man's voice, the common words he said turn oracles, the common thoughts he yoked like horses draw like griffins.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

If thou must love me, let it be for nought
Except for love's sake only. Do not say
"I love her for her smile —her look —her way
Of speaking gently,—for a trick of thought
That falls in well with mine, and certes brought
A sense of pleasant ease on such a day" -
For these things in themselves, Beloved, may
Be changed, or change for thee,—and love, so wrought,
May be unwrought so. Neither love me for
Thine own dear pity's wiping my cheeks dry,—
A creature might forget to weep, who bore
Thy comfort long, and lose thy love thereby!
But love me for love's sake, that evermore
Thou may'st love on, through love's eternity.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Hush, call no echo up in further proof
Of desolation! there's a voice within
That weeps... as thou must sing... alone, aloof.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Because God's gifts put man's best dreams to shame.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Thou hast thy calling to some palace-floor,
Most gracious singer of high poems! where
The dancers will break footing, from the care
Of watching up thy pregnant lips for more.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

The face of all the world is changed, I think,
Since I first heard the footsteps of thy soul.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Say thou dost love me, love me, love me — toll
The silver iterance! — only minding, Dear,
To love me also in silence with thy soul.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Go from me. Yet I feel that I shall stand
Henceforward in thy shadow.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Instruct me how to thank thee! Oh, to shoot
My soul's full meaning into future years,
That they should lend it utterance, and salute
Love that endures, from life that disappears!

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

I tell you, hopeless grief is passionless...

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

What I do
And what I dream include thee, as the wine
Must taste of its own grapes.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Here's ivy! — take them, as I used to do
Thy flowers, and keep them where they shall not pine.
Instruct thine eyes to keep their colours true,
And tell thy soul, their roots are left in mine.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

And yet, because I love thee, I obtain From that same love this vindicating grace, To live on still in love, and yet in vain

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Think, In mounting higher,
The angels would press on us, and aspire
To drop some golden orb of perfect song
Into our deep, dear silence.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

"Guess now who holds thee?"—"Death," I said. But there
The silver answer rang—"Not Death, but Love."

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

I seek no copy now of life's first half:
Leave here the pages with long musing curled,
And write me new my future's epigraph,
New angel mine, unhoped for in the world!

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

When our two souls stand up erect and strong,
Face to face, silent, drawing nigh and nigher,
Until the lengthening wings break into fire
At either curvèd point, — what bitter wrong
Can the earth do to us, that we should not long
Be here contented?

Elizabeth Barrett Browning