Elizabeth Barrett Browning

WORDSWORTH upon Helvellyn! Let the cloud Ebb audibly along the mountain-wind, Then break against the rock, and show behind The lowland valleys floating up to crowd The sense with beauty. He with forehead bowed

Let the world’s sharpness, like a clasping knife, Shut in upon itself and do no harm In this close hand of Love, now soft and warm, And let us hear no sound of human

IF all the gentlest-hearted friends I know Concentred in one heart their gentleness, That still grew gentler till its pulse was less For life than pity, I should yet be slow To bring my

Said a people to a poet -” Go out from among us straightway! While we are thinking earthly things, thou singest of divine. There’s a little fair brown nightingale, who, sitting in the gateways

I THINK we are too ready with complaint In this fair world of God’s. Had we no hope Indeed beyond the zenith and the slope Of yon gray blank of sky, we might grow

MY future will not copy fair my past On any leaf but Heaven’s. Be fully done Supernal Will! I would not fain be one Who, satisfying thirst and breaking fast, Upon the fulness of

XLI I thank all who have loved me in their hearts, With thanks and love from mine. Deep thanks to all Who paused a little near the prison-wall To hear my music in its

Pardon, oh, pardon, that my soul should make, Of all that strong divineness which I know For thine and thee, an image only so Formed of the sand, and fit to shift and break.

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 curved point,-what bitter wrong Can the earth do

A THOUGHT ay like a flower upon mine heart, And drew around it other thoughts like bees For multitude and thirst of sweetnesses; Whereat rejoicing, I desired the art Of the Greek whistler, who

I lift my heavy heart up solemnly, As once Electra her sepulchral urn, And, looking in thine eyes, I overturn The ashes at thy feet. Behold and see What a great heap of grief

Yes, call me by my pet-name! let me hear The name I used to run at, when a child, From innocent play, and leave the cowslips piled, To glance up in some face that

“Yes,” I answered you last night; “No,” this morning, Sir, I say. Colours seen by candlelight, Will not look the same by day. When the viols played their best, Lamps above, and laughs below

What was he doing, the great god Pan, Down in the reeds by the river? Spreading ruin and scattering ban, Splashing and paddling with hoofs of a goat, And breaking the golden lilies afloat

I. Dead! One of them shot by the sea in the east, And one of them shot in the west by the sea. Dead! both my boys! When you sit at the feast And

The Saviour looked on Peter. Ay, no word, No gesture of reproach; the Heavens serene Though heavy with armed justice, did not lean Their thunders that way: the forsaken Lord Looked only, on the

I. I stand on the mark beside the shore Of the first white pilgrim’s bended knee, Where exile turned to ancestor, And God was thanked for liberty. I have run through the night, my

1 He listened at the porch that day, To hear the wheel go on, and on; And then it stopped, ran back away, While through the door he brought the sun: But now my

And therefore if to love can be desert, I am not all unworthy. Cheeks as pale As these you see, and trembling knees that fail To bear the burden of a heavy heart,- This

Is it indeed so? If I lay here dead, Wouldst thou miss any life in losing mine? And would the sun for thee more coldly shine Because of grave-damps falling round my head? I

When we met first and loved, I did not build Upon the event with marble. Could it mean To last, a love set pendulous between Sorrow and sorrow? Nay, I rather thrilled, Distrusting every

My own Beloved, who hast lifted me From this drear flat of earth where I was thrown, And, in betwixt the languid ringlets, blown A life-breath, till the forehead hopefully Shines out again, as

EXPERIENCE, like a pale musician, holds A dulcimer of patience in his hand, Whence harmonies, we cannot understand, Of God; will in his worlds, the strain unfolds In sad-perplexed minors: deathly colds Fall on

I lived with visions for my company Instead of men and women, years ago, And found them gentle mates, nor thought to know A sweeter music than they played to me. But soon their

IF God compel thee to this destiny, To die alone, with none beside thy bed To ruffle round with sobs thy last word said And mark with tears the pulses ebb from thee, Pray

THOU large-brained woman and large-hearted man, Self-called George Sand! whose soul, amid the lions Of thy tumultuous senses, moans defiance And answers roar for roar, as spirits can: I would some mild miraculous thunder

I HAVE been in the meadows all the day And gathered there the nosegay that you see Singing within myself as bird or bee When such do field-work on a morn of May. But,

I The face, which, duly as the sun, Rose up for me with life begun, To mark all bright hours of the day With hourly love, is dimmed away- And yet my days go

Five months ago the stream did flow, The lilies bloomed within the sedge, And we were lingering to and fro, Where none will track thee in this snow, Along the stream, beside the hedge.

Thou comest! all is said without a word. I sit beneath thy looks, as children do In the noon-sun, with souls that tremble through Their happy eyelids from an unaverred Yet prodigal inward joy.

I count the dismal time by months and years Since last I felt the green sward under foot, And the great breath of all things summer- Met mine upon my lips. Now earth appears

I never gave a lock of hair away To a man, Dearest, except this to thee, Which now upon my fingers thoughtfully, I ring out to the full brown length and say ‘Take it.’

Two savings of the Holy Scriptures beat Like pulses in the Church’s brow and breast; And by them we find rest in our unrest And, heart deep in salt-tears, do yet entreat God’s fellowship

Indeed this very love which is my boast, And which, when rising up from breast to brow, Doth crown me with a ruby large enow To draw men’s eyes and prove the inner cost,-

The woman singeth at her spinning-wheel A pleasant chant, ballad or barcarole; She thinketh of her song, upon the whole, Far more than of her flax; and yet the reel Is full, and artfully

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 ‘But where do you go?’ said the lady, while both sat under the yew, And her eyes were alive in their depth, as the kraken beneath the sea-blue. II ‘Because I fear you,’

[Book 1] I am like, They tell me, my dear father. Broader brows Howbeit, upon a slenderer undergrowth Of delicate features, paler, near as grave ; But then my mother’s smile breaks up the

Because thou hast the power and own’st the grace To look through and behind this mask of me (Against which years have beat thus blanchingly With their rains), and behold my soul’s true face,

The first time that the sun rose on thine oath To love me, I looked forward to the moon To slacken all those bonds which seemed too soon And quickly tied to make a

Can it be right to give what I can give? To let thee sit beneath the fall of tears As salt as mine, and hear the sighing years Re-sighing on my lips renunciative Through

I heard an angel speak last night, And he said ‘Write! Write a Nation’s curse for me, And send it over the Western Sea.’ I faltered, taking up the word: ‘Not so, my lord!

Go, sit upon the lofty hill, And turn your eyes around, Where waving woods and waters wild Do hymn an autumn sound. The summer sun is faint on them The summer flowers depart Sit

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

With the same heart, I said, I’ll answer thee As those, when thou shalt call me by my name- Lo, the vain promise! is the same, the same, Perplexed and ruffled by life’s strategy?

Oh, yes! they love through all this world of ours! I will not gainsay love, called love forsooth. I have heard love talked in my early youth, And since, not so long back but

I think of thee!-my thoughts do twine and bud About thee, as wild vines, about a tree, Put out broad leaves, and soon there ‘s nought to see Except the straggling green which hides

AND, O beloved voices, upon which Ours passionately call because erelong Ye brake off in the middle of that song We sang together softly, to enrich The poor world with the sense of love,

When I attain to utter forth in verse Some inward thought, my soul throbs audibly Along my pulses, yearning to be free And something farther, fuller, higher, rehearse To the individual, true, and the

Yet, my pretty sportive friend, Little is’t to such an end That I praise thy rareness! Other dogs may be thy peers Haply in these drooping ears, And this glossy fairness. But of thee

God, God! With a child’s voice I cry, Weak, sad, confidingly – God, God! Thou knowest, eyelids, raised not always up Unto Thy love (as none of ours are), droop As ours, o’er many

Accuse me not, beseech thee, that I wear Too calm and sad a face in front of thine; For we two look two ways, and cannot shine With the same sunlight on our brow