What’s the best thing in the world? June-rose, by May-dew impearled; Sweet south-wind, that means no rain; Truth, not cruel to a friend; Pleasure, not in haste to end; Beauty,…
Posts published in “Elizabeth Barrett Browning Poems”
The cypress stood up like a churchThat night we felt our love would hold,And saintly moonlight seemed to searchAnd wash the whole world clean as gold;The olives crystallized the vales’Broad…
They say that *** lives very high; But if you look above the pinesYou cannot see our ***; and why? And if you dig down in the mines, You never see Him…
All are not taken; there are left behind Living Beloveds, tender looks to bring And make the daylight still a happy thing,And tender voices, to make soft the wind:But if it were…
Do ye hear the children weeping, O my brothers,Ere the sorrow comes with years?They are leaning their young heads against their mothers,And that cannot stop their tears.The young lambs are…
I mind me in the days departed,How often underneath the sunWith childish bounds I used to run To a garden long deserted. The beds and walks were vanish’d quite;And wheresoe’er had…
I tell you hopeless grief is passionless,That only men incredulous of despair,Half-taught in anguish, through the midnight airBeat upward to ***’s throne in loud accessOf shrieking and reproach. Full desertnessIn…
We sate among the stalls at Bethlehem;The dumb kine from their fodder turning them,Softened their horn’d faces,To almost human gazesToward the newly Born:The simple shepherds from the star-lit brooksBrought visionary…
What was he doing, the great *** Pan,Down in the reeds by the river?Spreading ruin and scattering ban,Splashing and paddling with hoofs of a goat,And breaking the golden lilies afloatWith…
I left thee last, a child at heart, A woman scarce in years:I come to thee, a solemn corpse Which neither feels nor fears.I have no breath to use in sighs;They laid…
I I thought once how Theocritus had sungOf the sweet years, the dear and wished-for years,Who each one in a gracious hand appearsTo bear a gift for mortals, old or…
II But only three in all ***’s universeHave heard this word thou hast said,—Himself, besideThee speaking, and me listening! and repliedOne of us . . . that was ***, .…
III Unlike are we, unlike, O princely Heart!Unlike our uses and our destinies.Our ministering two angels look surpriseOn one another, as they strike athwartTheir wings in passing. Thou, bethink thee,…
IV Thou hast thy calling to some palace-floor,Most gracious singer of high poems! whereThe dancers will break footing, from the careOf watching up thy pregnant lips for more.And dost thou…
V I lift my heavy heart up solemnly,As once Electra her sepulchral urn,And, looking in thine eyes, I overturnThe ashes at thy feet. Behold and seeWhat a great heap of…
VI Go from me. Yet I feel that I shall standHenceforward in thy shadow. NevermoreAlone upon the threshold of my doorOf individual life, I shall commandThe uses of my soul,…
VIII What can I give thee back, O liberalAnd princely giver, who hast brought the goldAnd purple of thine heart, unstained, untold,And laid them on the outside of the-wallFor such…
X Yet, love, mere love, is beautiful indeedAnd worthy of acceptation. Fire is bright,Let temple burn, or flax; an equal lightLeaps in the flame from cedar-plank or ****:And love is…
XII Indeed this very love which is my boast,And which, when rising up from breast to brow,Doth crown me with a ruby large enowTo draw men’s eyes and prove the…
XIII And wilt thou have me fashion into speechThe love I bear thee, finding words enough,And hold the torch out, while the winds are rough,Between our faces, to cast light…
XIV If thou must love me, let it be for noughtExcept for love’s sake only. Do not say‘I love her for her smile—her look—her wayOf speaking gently,—for a trick of…
XV Accuse me not, beseech thee, that I wearToo calm and sad a face in front of thine;For we two look two ways, and cannot shineWith the same sunlight on…
XVI And yet, because thou overcomest so,Because thou art more noble and like a king,Thou canst prevail against my fears and flingThy purple round me, till my heart shall growToo…
XVIII I never gave a lock of hair awayTo a man, Dearest, except this to thee,Which now upon my fingers thoughtfully,I ring out to the full brown length and say‘Take…
XIX The soul’s Rialto hath its merchandise;I barter curl for curl upon that mart,And from my poet’s forehead to my heartReceive this lock which outweighs argosies,—As purply black, as erst…