Elizabeth Barrett Browning Quotations

If thou must love me, let it be for naught except for love's sake only.

I love thee to the depth and breadth and height my soul can reach.

God answers sharp and sudden on some prayers, And thrusts the thing we have prayed for in our face, A gauntlet with a gift in it.

How many desolate creatures on the earth have learnt the simple dues of fellowship and social comfort, in a hospital.

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

But the child's sob curses deeper in the silence than the strong man in his wrath!

Girls blush, sometimes, because they are alive, half wishing they were dead to save the shame. The sudden blush devours them, neck and brow; They have drawn too near the fire of life, like gnats, and flare up bodily, wings and all. What then? Who's sorry for a gnat or girl?

World's use is cold, world's love is vain, world's cruelty is bitter bane; but is not the fruit of pain.

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

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.

At painful times, when composition is impossible and reading is not enough, grammars and dictionaries are excellent for distraction.

And each man stands with his face in the light. Of his own drawn sword, ready to do what a hero can.

What I do and what I dream include thee, as the wine must taste of its own grapes.

He said true things, but called them by wrong names.

The beautiful seems right by force of beauty and the feeble wrong because of weakness.

What is genius but the power of expressing a new individuality?

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.'

God's gifts put man's best dreams to shame.

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

A woman is always younger than a man at equal years.

First time he kissed me, he but only kissed The fingers of this hand wherewith I write; And, ever since, it grew more clean and white.

Earth's crammed with heaven, And every common bush afire with God: But only he who sees takes off his shoes.

If you desire faith, then you have faith enough.

An ignorance of means may minister to greatness, but an ignorance of aims make it impossible to be great at all.

He lives most life whoever breathes most air.

You may write twenty lines one day--or even three like Euripides in three days--and a hundred lines in one more day--and yet on the hundred, may have been expended as much good work, as on the twenty and the three.

Very whitely still The lilies of our lives may reassure Their blossoms from their roots, accessible Alone to heavenly dews that drop not fewer; Growing straight out of man's reach, on the hill. God only, who made us rich, can make us poor.

Every wish Is like a prayer--with God.

O brave poets, keep back nothing; Nor mix falsehood with the whole! Look up Godward! speak the truth in Worthy song from earnest soul! Hold, in high poetic duty, Truest Truth the fairest Beauty.

There's nothing great Nor small, has said a poet of our day, Whose voice will ring beyond the curfew of eve And not be thrown out by the matin's bell.

Yet half the beast is the great god Pan, To laugh, as he sits by the river, Making a poet out of a man. The true gods sigh for the cost and the pain-- For the reed that grows never more again As a reed with the reeds of the river.

And lilies are still lilies, pulled By smutty hands, though spotted from their white.

I wish I were the lily's leaf To fade upon that bosom warm, Content to wither, pale and brief, The trophy of thy paler form.

Oh, a day in the city-square, there is no such pleasure in life!

True knowledge comes only through suffering.

A great acacia, with its slender trunk And overpoise of multitudinous leaves. (In which a hundred fields might spill their dew And intense verdure, yet find room enough) Stood reconciling all the place with green.

Thank God for grace, Ye who weep only! If, as some have done, Ye grope tear-blinded in a desert place And touch but tombs,--look up! Those tears will run Soon in long rivers down the lifted face, And leave the vision clear for stars and sun.

Many a fervid man writes books as cold and flat as graveyard stones.

Sleep on, Baby, on the floor, Tired of all the playing, Sleep with smile the sweeter for That you dropped away in! On your curls' full roundness stand Golden lights serenely-- One cheek, pushed out by the hand, Folds the dimple inly.

That headlong ivy! not a leaf will grow But thinking of a wreath, . . . I like such ivy; bold to leap a height 'Twas strong to climb! as good to grow on graves As twist about a thyrsus; pretty too (And that's not ill) when twisted round a comb.

Whatever's lost, it first was won.

God only, who made us rich, can make us poor.

Utterance is the evidence of foregone study.

I, who had had my heart full for hours, took advantage of an early moment of solitude, to cry in it very bitterly. Suddenly a little hairy head thrust itself from behind my pillow into my face, rubbing its ears and nose against me in a responsive agitation, and drying the tears as they came.

Don't get me wrong-painting's all right. But now that we have photography, what's the point?

The man, most man, works best for men: and, if most man indeed, he gets his manhood plainest from his soul.

Get leave to work In this world,--'tis the best you get at all.

The least flower, with brimming cup, may stand and share its dew drop with another near.

Free men freely work: Whoever fears God, fears to sit at ease.

The great chasm between the thing I say, and the thing I would say, would be quite dispiriting to me, in spite even of such kindnesses as yours, if the desire did not master the despondency.

Anybody is qualified, according to everybody, for giving opinions upon poetry. It is not so in chemistry and mathematics. Nor is it so, I believe, in whist and the polka. But then these are more serious things.

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; Unless you can dream that his faith is fast, Through behoving and unbehoving; Unless you can die when the dream is past — Oh, never call it loving!

I remember, when I was a child and wrote poems in little clasped books, I used to kiss the books and put them away tenderly because I had been happy near them, and take them out by turns when I was going from home, to cheer them by the change of air and the pleasure of the new place. This, not for the sake of the verses written in them, and not for the sake of writing more verses in them, but from pure gratitude.

Deep violets, you liken to The kindest eyes that look on you, Without a thought disloyal.

And that dismal cry rose slowly And sank slowly through the air, Full of spirit's melancholy And eternity's despair; And they heard the words it said,- "Pan is dead! great Pan is dead! Pan, Pan is dead!"

Gaze up at the stars knowing that I see the same sky and wish the same sweet dreams.

God Himself is the best Poet, And the Real is His song.

What frightens me is that men are content with what is not life at all.

It is not merely the likeness which is precious... but the association and the sense of nearness involved in the thing... the fact of the very shadow of the person lying there fixed forever! It is the very sanctification of portraits I think - and it is not at all monstrous in me to say that I would rather have such a memorial of one I dearly loved, than the noblest Artist's work ever produced.

We all have known good critics, who have stamped out poet's hopes; Good statesmen, who pulled ruin on the state; Good patriots, who, for a theory, risked a cause; Good kings, who disemboweled for a tax; Good Popes, who brought all good to jeopardy; Good Christians, who sat still in easy-chairs; And damned the general world for standing up. Now, may the good God pardon all good men!

A good neighbor sometimes cuts your morning up to mince-meat of the very smallest talk, then helps to sugar her bohea at night with your reputation.

Experience, like a pale musician, holds a dulcimer of patience in his hand.

And lips say God be pitiful, who never said, God be praised.

Get work: Be sure it is better than what you work to get.

The growing drama has outgrown such toys Of simulated stature, face, and speech: It also peradventure may outgrow The simulation of the painted scene, Boards, actors, prompters, gaslight, and costume, And take for a worthier stage the soul itself, Its shifting fancies and celestial lights, With all its grand orchestral silences To keep the pauses of its rhythmic sounds.

I tell you, hopeless grief is passionless; That only men incredulous of despair, half-taught in anguish, through the midnight air beat upward to god's throne in loud access of shrieking and reproach

I love thee to the level of everyday's most quiet need, by sun and candle light...I love thee with the breath,smiles,t ears,of all my life.

The Holy Night We sate among the stalls at Bethlehem; The dumb kine from their fodder turning them, Softened their horned faces To almost human gazes Toward the newly Born: The simple shepherds from the star-lit brooks Brought visionary looks, As yet in their astonied hearing rung The strange sweet angel-tongue: The magi of the East, in sandals worn, Knelt reverent, sweeping round, With long pale beards, their gifts upon the ground, The incense, myrrh, and gold These baby hands were impotent to hold: So let all earthlies and celestials wait Upon thy royal state. Sleep, sleep, my kingly One!

She has seen the mystery hid Under Egypt's pyramid: By those eyelids pale and close Now she knows what Rhamses knows.

But so fair, She takes the breath of men away Who gaze upon her unaware.

And Marlowe, Webster, Fletcher, Ben, Whose fire-hearts sowed our furrows when The world was worthy of such men.

I love you for the part of me that you bring out.

And Chaucer, with his infantine Familiar clasp of things divine.

Eyes of gentianellas azure, Staring, winking at the skies.

There Shakespeare, on whose forehead climb The crowns o' the world; oh, eyes sublime With tears and laughter for all time!

Death forerunneth Love to win "Sweetest eyes were ever seen."

For frequent tears have run; The colours from my life.

Or from Browning some "Pomegranate," which if cut deep down the middle Shows a heart within blood-tinctured, of a veined humanity.

A grave, on which to rest from singing?

Earth's crammed with Heaven.

Oh, the little birds sang east, and the little birds sang west.

"There is no God," the foolish saith, But none, "There is no sorrow." And nature oft the cry of faith In bitter need will borrow: Eyes which the preacher could not school, By wayside graves are raised; And lips say, "God be pitiful," Who ne'er said, "God be praised."

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

They say that God lives very high! But if you look above the pines You cannot see our God. And why? And if you dig down in the mines You never see Him in the gold, Though from Him all that's glory shines. God is so good, He wears a fold Of heaven and earth across His face - Like secrets kept, for love, untold. But still I feel that His embrace Slides down by thrills, through all things made, Through sight and sound of every place: As if my tender brother laid On my shut lids, her kisses' pressure, Half waking me at night; and said, "Who kissed through the dark, dear guesser?"

The sweetest lives are those to duty wed, Whose deeds, both great and small Are close-knot strands of an unbroken thread There love ennobles all. The world may sound no trumpets, ring no bells The book of life the shining record tells. Thy love shall chant its own beatitudes After its own life-workings. A child's kiss Set on thy sighing lips shall make thee glad; A poor man served by thee shall make thee rich; A sick man helped by thee shall make thee strong; Thou shalt serve thyself by every sense, Of service which thou renderest.

Whoso loves, believes in the impossible

But since he had The genius to be loved, why let him have The justice to be honoured in his grave.

When we first met and loved, I did not build Upon the event with marble. . . .

My love for him was so exquisitely pure that if we all were capable of giving and receiving such a beautiful gift the world would be a far more brilliant place; I think we'd all be poets.

What we call Life is a condition of the soul. And the soul must improve in happiness and wisdom, except by its own fault. These tears in our eyes, these faintings of the flesh, will not hinder such improvement.

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.

XI I sang his name instead of song; Over and over I sang his name: Backward and forward I sang it along, With my sweetest notes, it was still the same! I sang it low, that the slave-girls near Might never guess, from what they could hear, That all the song was a name.

Quick-loving hearts ... may quickly loathe.

Beloved, let us live so well our work shall still be better for our love, and still our love be sweeter for our work.

She lived, we'll say, A harmless life, she called a virtuous life, A quiet life, which was not life at all (But that she had not lived enough to know)

I love thee freely, as men strive for right. I love thee purely, as they turn from praise. I love thee with the passion put to use

If I leave all for thee, wilt thou exchange And be all to me?

And yet, because I love thee, I obtain From that same love this vindicating grace, To live on still in love, and yet in vain

Will that light come again, As now these tears come...falling hot and real!

Alas, I have grieved so I am hard to love. Yet love me--wilt thou? Open thine heart wide, And fold within, the wet wings of thy dove.