Quotes From "Sonnets From The Portuguese" By Elizabeth Barrett Browning

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 every day's Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light. 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

My letters! all dead paper, mute and white! And yet they seem alive and quivering Against my tremulous hands which loose the string And let them drop down on my knee to-night. This said, -- he wished to have me in his sight Once, as a friend: this fixed a day in spring To come and touch my hand. . a simple thing, Yet I wept for it! -- this,. . the paper's light. .Said, Dear I love thee; and I sank and quailed As if God's future thundered on my past. This said, I am thine -- and so its ink has paled With lying at my heart that beat too fast. And this. . O Love, thy words have ill availed If, what this said, I dared repeat at last!. Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Quick-loving hearts ... may quickly loathe. Elizabeth Barrett Browning

The picture of helpless indolence she calls herselfsublimely helpless and impotent I had done living I thought Was ever life so like death before? My face was so close against the tombstones, that there seemed no room for tears. Elizabeth Barrett Browning

And wilt thou have me fashion into speech The love I bear thee, finding words enough, And hold the torch out, while the winds are rough, Between our faces, to cast light on each? -I dropt it at thy feet. I cannot teach My hand to hold my spirits so far off From myself--me--that I should bring thee proof In words, of love hid in me out of reach. Nay, let the silence of my womanhood Commend my woman-love to thy belief, -Seeing that I stand unwon, however wooed, And rend the garment of my life, in brief, By a most dauntless, voiceless fortitude, Lest one touch of this heart convey its grief. Elizabeth Barrett Browning

How, Dearest, wilt thou have me for most use? A hope, to sing by gladly? or a fine Sad memory, with thy songs to interfuse? A shade, in which to sing–of palm or pine? A grave, on which to rest from singing? Choose. 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

I thought once how Theocritus had sung Of the sweet years, the dear and wished-for years, Who each one in a gracious hand appears To bear a gift for mortals, old or young; And, as I mused it in his antique tongue, I saw, in gradual vision through my tears, The sweet, sad years, the melancholy years, Those of my own life, who by turns had flung A shadow across me. Straightaway I was 'ware, So weeping, how a mystic Shape did move Behind me, and drew me backward by the hair; And a voice said in mastery, while I strove, -- Guess now who holds thee?-- Death, I said, But, there, The silver answer rang, -- Not Death, but Love. Elizabeth Barrett Browning