Elizabeth Barrett Browning Quotes

The widest land
Doom takes to part us, leaves thy heart in mine
With pulses that beat double. What I do
And what I dream include thee, as the wine
Must taste of its own grapes.

And trade is art, and art's philosophy,
In Paris.

I begin to think that none are so bold as the timid, when they are fairly roused.

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.

Learn to win a lady's faith
Nobly, as the thing is high;
Bravely as for life and death -
With a loyal gravity.

Lead her from the festive boards,
Point her to the starry skies,
Guard her, by your truthful words,
Pure from courtship's flatteries.

The picture of helpless indolence she calls herself
sublimely 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.

The soul hath snatched up mine all faint and weak,
And placed it by thee on a golden throne, — And that I love (O soul, we must be meek!)
Is by thee only, whom I love alone.

I love thee freely, as men strive for Right; I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise. I love thee with passion put to use In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.

A harmless life, she called a virtuous life,
A quiet life, which was not life at all . . .

I love thee to the level of every day's
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.

Thou comest! all is said without a word.

The heart doth recognise thee,
Alone, alone! The heart doth smell thee sweet,
Doth view thee fair, doth judge thee most complete, — -
Though seeing now those changes that disguise thee.

I only thought
Of lying quiet there where I was thrown
Like sea-weed on the rocks, and suffer her
To prick me to a pattern with her pin,
Fibre from fibre, delicate leaf from leaf,
And dry out from my drowned anatomy
The last sea-salt left in me.

Betwixt me and the dreadful outer brink
Of obvious death, where I, who thought to sink,
Was caught up into love, and taught the whole
Of life in a new rhythm.

Did you think of that? Who burns his viol will not dance, I know. To cymbals, Romney.