Elizabeth Barrett Browning Death Quotations

Smiles, tears, of all my life! - and, if God choose, I shall but love thee better after death.

The Greeks said grandly in their tragic phrase, 'Let no one be called happy till his death;' to which I would add, 'Let no one, till his death, be called unhappy.'

For 'Tis not in mere death that men die most.

When the dust of death has choked a great man's voice, the common words he said turn oracles, the common thoughts he yoked like horses draw like griffins.

O Earth, so full of dreary noises! O men, with wailing in your voices! O delved gold, the wader's heap! O strife, O curse, that o'er it fall! God makes a silence through you all, And "giveth His beloved, sleep.

Guess now who holds thee?'--'Death,' I said. But, there, The silver answer rang, . . . 'Not Death, but Love.

Knowledge by suffering entereth, And life is perfected by death.