Elizabeth Barrett Browning: Trending quotes

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Elizabeth Barrett Browning: 176 quotes44 likes

“But love me for love's sake, that evermore
Thou may'st love on, through love's eternity”

Elizabeth Barrett Browning book Sonnets from the Portuguese

No. XIV
Sonnets from the Portuguese (1850)
Context: 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.

“To hold together what he was and is.”

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Bk. I, l. 1-8. <br class="br"> Aurora Leigh http://digital.library.upenn.edu/women/barrett/aurora/aurora.html (1857) <br class="br">Context: Of writing many books there is no end;<br>And I who have written much in prose and verse<br>For others' uses, will write now for mine,—<br>Will write my story for my better self,<br>As when you paint your portrait for a friend,<br>Who keeps it in a drawer and looks at it<br>Long after he has ceased to love you, just<br>To hold together what he was and is.

“I praise Thee while my days go on;
I love Thee while my days go on”

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

St. 23 -24.
De Profundis (1862)
Context: p>I praise Thee while my days go on;
I love Thee while my days go on:
Through dark and dearth, through fire and frost,
With emptied arms and treasure lost,
I thank Thee while my days go on.And having in thy life-depth thrown
Being and suffering (which are one),
As a child drops his pebble small
Down some deep well, and hears it fall
Smiling — so I. THY DAYS GO ON.</p

“Unless you can die when the dream is past —
Oh, never call it loving!”

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

A Woman's Shortcomings http://www.poetryconnection.net/poets/Elizabeth_Barrett_Browning/14908, st. 5 (1850). <br class="br">Context: Unless you can muse in a crowd all day<br>On the absent face that fixed you;<br>Unless you can love, as the angels may,<br>With the breadth of heaven betwixt you;<br>Unless you can dream that his faith is fast,<br>Through behoving and unbehoving;<br>Unless you can die when the dream is past —<br>Oh, never call it loving!

“And truly, I reiterate, . . nothing's small!”

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Bk. VII, l. 812-826. <br class="br"> Aurora Leigh http://digital.library.upenn.edu/women/barrett/aurora/aurora.html (1857) <br class="br">Context: And truly, I reiterate,.. nothing's small!<br>No lily-muffled hum of a summer-bee,<br>But finds some coupling with the spinning stars;<br>No pebble at your foot, but proves a sphere;<br>No chaffinch, but implies the cherubim:<br>And, — glancing on my own thin, veined wrist, —<br>In such a little tremour of the blood<br>The whole strong clamour of a vehement soul<br>Doth utter itself distinct. Earth's crammed with heaven,<br>And every common bush afire with God:<br>But only he who sees, takes off his shoes,<br>The rest sit round it, and pluck blackberries,<br>And daub their natural faces unaware<br>More and more, from the first similitude.

“I cannot speak
In happy tones”

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 514.
Context: I cannot speak
In happy tones; the tear drops on my cheek
Show I am sad;
But I can speak
Of grace to suffer with submission meek,
Until made glad.
I cannot feel
That all is well, when dark'ning clouds conceal
The shining sun;
But then I know
God lives and loves; and say, since it is so,
"Thy will be done."

“Life, struck sharp on death,
Makes awful lightning.”

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Bk. I, l. 210-214. <br class="br"> Aurora Leigh http://digital.library.upenn.edu/women/barrett/aurora/aurora.html (1857) <br class="br">Context: Life, struck sharp on death,<br>Makes awful lightning. His last word was, 'Love–'<br>'Love, my child, love, love!'–(then he had done with grief)<br>'Love, my child.' Ere I answered he was gone,<br>And none was left to love in all the world.

“Instruct thine eyes to keep their colours true,
And tell thy soul, their roots are left in mine.”

Elizabeth Barrett Browning book Sonnets from the Portuguese

No. LXIV
Sonnets from the Portuguese (1850)
Context: 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.

“I cannot feel
That all is well, when dark'ning clouds conceal
The shining sun;
But then I know
God lives and loves; and say, since it is so,
"Thy will be done."”

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 514.
Context: I cannot speak
In happy tones; the tear drops on my cheek
Show I am sad;
But I can speak
Of grace to suffer with submission meek,
Until made glad.
I cannot feel
That all is well, when dark'ning clouds conceal
The shining sun;
But then I know
God lives and loves; and say, since it is so,
"Thy will be done."

“What was he doing, the great god Pan,
Down in the reeds by the river?”

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

A Musical Instrument http://www.webterrace.com/browning/A%20Musical%20Instrument.htm, st. 1 (1860). <br class="br">Context: What was he doing, the great god Pan,<br>Down in the reeds by the river?<br>Spreading ruin and scattering ban,<br>Splashing and paddling with hoofs of a goat,<br>And breaking the golden lilies afloat<br>With the dragon-fly on the river.

“Perhaps the cup was broken here,
That Heaven's new wine might show more clear.
I praise Thee while my days go on.”

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

St. 22.
De Profundis (1862)
Context: Whatever's lost, it first was won;
We will not struggle nor impugn.
Perhaps the cup was broken here,
That Heaven's new wine might show more clear.
I praise Thee while my days go on.

“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 book Sonnets from the Portuguese

No. LXII
Sonnets from the Portuguese (1850)

“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 book Sonnets from the Portuguese

No. LXI
Sonnets from the Portuguese (1850)

“Unless you can muse in a crowd all day
On the absent face that fixed you;
Unless you can love, as the angels may,
With the breadth of heaven betwixt you”

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

A Woman's Shortcomings http://www.poetryconnection.net/poets/Elizabeth_Barrett_Browning/14908, st. 5 (1850). <br class="br">Context: Unless you can muse in a crowd all day<br>On the absent face that fixed you;<br>Unless you can love, as the angels may,<br>With the breadth of heaven betwixt you;<br>Unless you can dream that his faith is fast,<br>Through behoving and unbehoving;<br>Unless you can die when the dream is past —<br>Oh, never call it loving!

“All patterns of what shall be in the Mount;
The whole temporal show related royally,
And build up to eterne significance
Through the open arms of God.”

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Bk. VII, l. 801-808. <br class="br"> Aurora Leigh http://digital.library.upenn.edu/women/barrett/aurora/aurora.html (1857) <br class="br">Context: Man, the two-fold creature, apprehends<br>The two-fold manner, in and outwardly,<br>And nothing in the world comes single to him.<br>A mere itself, — cup, column, or candlestick,<br>All patterns of what shall be in the Mount;<br>The whole temporal show related royally,<br>And build up to eterne significance<br>Through the open arms of God.

“Man, the two-fold creature, apprehends
The two-fold manner, in and outwardly,
And nothing in the world comes single to him.”

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Bk. VII, l. 801-808. <br class="br"> Aurora Leigh http://digital.library.upenn.edu/women/barrett/aurora/aurora.html (1857) <br class="br">Context: Man, the two-fold creature, apprehends<br>The two-fold manner, in and outwardly,<br>And nothing in the world comes single to him.<br>A mere itself, — cup, column, or candlestick,<br>All patterns of what shall be in the Mount;<br>The whole temporal show related royally,<br>And build up to eterne significance<br>Through the open arms of God.

“And having in thy life-depth thrown
Being and suffering (which are one),
As a child drops his pebble small
Down some deep well, and hears it fall
Smiling — so I. THY DAYS GO ON.”

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

St. 23 -24.
De Profundis (1862)
Context: p>I praise Thee while my days go on;
I love Thee while my days go on:
Through dark and dearth, through fire and frost,
With emptied arms and treasure lost,
I thank Thee while my days go on.And having in thy life-depth thrown
Being and suffering (which are one),
As a child drops his pebble small
Down some deep well, and hears it fall
Smiling — so I. THY DAYS GO ON.</p

“You were made perfectly to be loved and surely I have loved you in the idea of you my whole life long.”

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

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

Elizabeth Barrett Browning book Sonnets from the Portuguese

No. XXVI
Sonnets from the Portuguese (1850)

“With stammering lips and insufficient sound I strive and struggle to deliver right the music of my nature.”

Elizabeth Barrett Browning