We get no good By being ungenerous, even to a book And calculating profits - so much help By so much rending. It is rather when We gloriously forget … - Elizabeth Barrett Browning

It is rather when
We gloriously forget ourselves, and plunge
Soul-forward, headlong, into a book’s profound,
Impassioned for its beauty and salt of truth — ’Tis then we get the right good from a book.

I take her as God made her, and as men Must fail to unmake her, for my honoured wife.

A cheerful genius suits the times, / And all true poets laugh unquenchably / Like Shakespeare and the gods.

If thou must love me, let it be for naught
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, Belovèd, 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 mayst love on, through love's eternity.

If Thou Must Love Me