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How Do I Love Thee? Let Me Count The Ways.i Love Thee To The Depth And Breadth And Height My Soul Can Reach, When Feeling Out Of Sight For The Ends Of Being And Ideal Grace.

-Elizabeth Barrett Browning

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How Do I Love

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

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How Do I Love Thee? Let Me Count The Ways.i Love Thee To The Depth And Breadth And Height My Soul Can Reach, When Feeling Out Of Sight For The Ends Of Being And Ideal Grace.

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I Would Build A Cloudy House For My Thoughts To Live In; When For Earth Too Fancy-loose And Too Low For Heaven! Hush! I Talk My Dream Aloud - I Build It Bright To See, - I Build It On The Moonlit Cloud, To Which I Looked With Thee.

The Critics Could Never Mortify Me Out Of Heart - Because I Love Poetry For Its Own Sake, - And, Tho' With No Stoicism And Some Ambition, Care More For My Poems Than For My Poetic Reputation.

But Since He Had The Genius To Be Loved, Why Let Him Have The Justice To Be Honoured In His Grave.

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 Freely, As Men Strive For Right. I Love Thee Purely, As They Turn From Praise. I Love Thee With The Passion Put To Use

I Work With Patience, Which Is Almost Power.

Guess Now Who Holds Thee?'--'death,' I Said. But, There, The Silver Answer Rang, . . . 'not Death, But Love.

How Joyously The Young Sea-mew Lay Dreaming On The Waters Blue, Whereon Our Little Bark Had Thrown A Little Shade, The Only One; But Shadows Ever Man Pursue.

"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."

There, That Is Our Secret: Go To Sleep! You Will Wake, And Remember, And Understand.

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)

His Ears Were Often The First Thing To Catch My Tears.

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!"

Behold Me! I Am Worthy Of Thy Loving, For I Love Thee!

Death Forerunneth Love To Win "sweetest Eyes Were Ever Seen."

But Love Me For Love's Sake, That Evermore Thou May'st Love On, Through Love's Eternity.

Friendship Love

We Can't Separate Our Humanity From Our Poetry.

The Little Cares That Fretted Me, I Lost Them Yesterday Among The Fields Above The Sea, Among The Winds At Play.

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.

For Frequent Tears Have Run; The Colours From My Life.

Capacity For Joy Admits Temptation.

And Lips Say “god Be Pitiful,” Who Ne'er Said “god Be Praised.”

The Exchange Of Sympathy For Gratitude Is The Most Princely Thing!

Get Leave To Work In This World,--'tis The Best You Get At All.

The Charm, One Might Say The Genius, Of Memory Is That It Is Choosy, Chancy And Temperamental; It Rejects The Edifying Cathedral And Indelibly Photographs The Small Boy Outside, Chewing A Hunk Of Melon In The Dust.

Books Are Men Of Higher Stature.

Experience, Like A Pale Musician, Holds A Dulcimer Of Patience In His Hand.

Happy Are All Free Peoples, Too Strong To Be Dispossessed. But Blessed Are Those Among Nations Who Dare To Be Strong For The Rest!

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.

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.

Since When Was Genius Found Respectable?

The Soul's Rialto Hath Its Merchandise, I Barter For Curl Upon That Mart.

With Stammering Lips And Insufficient Sound I Strive And Struggle To Deliver Right The Music Of My Nature.

Books Are Men Of Higher Stature, And The Only Men That Speak Aloud For Future Times To Hear.

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.

May The Good God Pardon All Good Men.

Books Succeed; And Lives Fail.

But So Fair, She Takes The Breath Of Men Away Who Gaze Upon Her Unaware.

Whoever Lives True Life, Will Love True Love.

What I Do And What I Dream Include Thee, As The Wine Must Taste Of Its Own Grapes.

Many A Crown Covers Bald Foreheads.

True Knowledge Comes Only Through Suffering.

For None Can Express Thee, Though All Should Approve Thee. I Love Thee So, Dear, That I Only Can Love Thee.

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.

We Have Hearts Within, Warm, Live, Improvident, Indecent Hearts.

You Were Made Perfectly To Be Loved - And Surely I Have Loved You, In The Idea Of You, My Whole Life Long.

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.

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?"

Of All The Thoughts Of God That Are Borne Inward Unto Souls Afar, Along The Psalmist's Music Deep, Now Tell Me If That Any Is. For Gift Or Grace, Surpassing This-- He Giveth His Beloved Sleep.

The Charm, One Might Say The Genius, Of Memory Is That It Is Choosy, Chancy And Temperamental.

A Great Man Leaves Clean Work Behind Him, And Requires No Sweeper Up Of The Chips.

I Love You For The Part Of Me That You Bring Out.

Earth's Crammed With Heaven, And Every Common Bush Afire With God: But Only He Who Sees Takes Off His Shoes.

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.

There Shakespeare, On Whose Forehead Climb The Crowns O' The World; Oh, Eyes Sublime With Tears And Laughter For All Time!

Don't Get Me Wrong-painting's All Right. But Now That We Have Photography, What's The Point?

God Keeps A Niche In Heaven, To Hold Our Idols; And Albeit He Brake Them To Our Faces, And Denied That Our Close Kisses Should Impair Their White,-- I Know We Shall Behold Them Raised, Complete, The Dust Swept From Their Beauty, Glorified, New Memnons Singing In The Great God-light.

Unless You Can Feel When The Song Is Done No Other Is Sweet In Its Rhythm; Unless You Can Feel When Left By One That All Men Else Go With Him.

Get Work, Get Work; Be Sure 'tis Better Than What You Work To Get.

But The Child's Sob Curses Deeper In The Silence Than The Strong Man In His Wrath!

Silence Is The Best Response To A Fool.

The Music Soars Within The Little Lark, And The Lark Soars.

The Plague Of Gold Strikes Far And Near.

Enough! We're Tired, My Heart And I. We Sit Beside The Headstone Thus, And Wish That Name Were Carved For Us. The Moss Reprints More Tenderly The Hard Types Of The Mason's Knife, As Heaven's Sweet Life Renews Earth's Life With Which We're Tired, My Heart And I .... In This Abundant Earth No Doubt Is Little Room For Things Worn Out: Disdain Them, Break Them, Throw Them By! And If Before The Days Grew Rough We Once Were Loved, Used, - Well Enough, I Think, We've Fared, My Heart And I.

Earth's Crammed With Heaven.

Why, What Is To Live? Not To Eat And Drink And Breathe,—but To Feel The Life In You Down All The Fibres Of Being, Passionately And Joyfully.

Nor Myrtle--which Means Chiefly Love: And Love Is Something Awful Which One Dare Not Touch So Early O' Mornings.

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.

Like To Write? Of Course, Of Course I Do. I Seem To Live While I Write - It Is Life, For Me.

For Me, My Heart, That Erst Did Go Most Like A Tired Child At A Show, That Sees Through Tears The Mummers Leap, Would Now Its Wearied Vision Close, Would Childlike On His Love Repose, Who Giveth His Beloved, Sleep.

Much Of The Possibility Of Being Cheerful Comes From The Faculty Of Throwing Oneself Beyond Oneself.

Wall Must Get The Weather Stain Before They Grow The Ivy.

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.

Mountain Gorses, Do Ye Teach Us . . . . That The Wisest Word Man Reaches Is The Humblest He Can Speak?

Thou Large-brain'd Woman And Large-hearted Man.

We Get No Good By Being Ungenerous, Even To A Book, And Calculating Profits--so Much Help By So Much Reading. 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.

My Sun Sets To Raise Again.

Or From Browning Some "pomegranate," Which If Cut Deep Down The Middle Shows A Heart Within Blood-tinctured, Of A Veined Humanity.

What Monster Have We Here? A Great Deed At This Hour Of Day? A Great Just Deed - And Not For Pay? Absurd - Or Insincere?

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

Utterance Is The Evidence Of Foregone Study.

She Has Seen The Mystery Hid Under Egypt's Pyramid: By Those Eyelids Pale And Close Now She Knows What Rhamses Knows.

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 Be Served Thyself By Every Sense Of Service Which Thou Renderest.

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!

It Was Not The Apple On The Tree But The Pair On The Ground That Caused The Trouble In The Garden Of Eden.

I Have Done Most Of My Talking By Post Of Late Years--as People Shut Up In Dungeons Take Up With Scrawling Mottoes On The Walls.

All Actual Heroes Are Essential Men, And All Men Possible Heroes.

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.

Beloved, Let Us Live So Well Our Work Shall Still Be Better For Our Love, And Still Our Love Be Sweeter For Our Work.

The World's Male Chivalry Has Perished Out, But Women Are Knights-errant To The Last; And, If Cervantes Had Been Greater Still, He Had Made His Don A Donna.

God's Gifts Put Man's Best Dreams To Shame.

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.

I Heard An Angel Speak Last Night/and He Said, "write!"

Quick-loving Hearts ... May Quickly Loathe.

Folded Eyes See Brighter Colors Than The Open Ever Do.

A Woman's Always Younger Than A Man At Equal Years.

God Only, Who Made Us Rich, Can Make Us Poor.

And Lilies Are Still Lilies, Pulled By Smutty Hands, Though Spotted From Their White.

I Love Thee To The Depth And Breadth And Height My Soul Can Reach.

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!

Suddenly, As Rare Things Will, It Vanished.

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.

What Is Genius But The Power Of Expressing A New Individuality?

What Frightens Me Is That Men Are Content With What Is Not Life At All.

Our Euripides The Human, With His Droppings Of Warm Tears, And His Touchings Of Things Common Till They Rose To Meet The Spheres.

Pray, Pray, Thou Who Also Weepest,-- And The Drops Will Slacken So; Weep, Weep--and The Watch Thou Keepest, With A Quicker Count Will Go. Think,--the Shadow On The Dial For The Nature Most Undone, Marks The Passing Of The Trial, Proves The Presence Of The Sun.

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.

With What Cracked Pitchers Go We To Deep Wells In This World!

Men Of Science, Osteologists And Surgeons, Beat Some Poets, In Respect For Nature,-count Nought Common Or Unclean, Spend Raptures Upon Perfect Specimens Of Indurated Veins, Distorted Joints, Or Beautiful New Cases Of Curved Spine; While We, We Are Shocked At Nature's Falling Off, We Dare To Shrink Back From Her Warts And Blains.

Whoso Loves, Believes In The Impossible

At Painful Times, When Composition Is Impossible And Reading Not Enough, Grammars And Dictionaries Are Excellent For Distraction.

You Believe In God, For Your Part?--that He Who Makes Can Make Good Things From Ill Things, Best From Worst, As Men Plant Tulips Upon Dunghills When They Wish Them Finest.

O Death, O Beyond, Thou Art Sweet, Thou Art Strange!

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?

A Grave, On Which To Rest From Singing?

Eyes Of Gentianellas Azure, Staring, Winking At The Skies.

A Woman Cannot Do The Thing She Ought, Which Means Whatever Perfect Thing She Can, In Life, In Art, In Science, But She Fears To Let The Perfect Action Take Her Part And Rest There: She Must Prove What She Can Do Before She Does It, -- Prate Of Woman's Rights, Of Woman's Mission, Woman's Function, Till The Men (who Are Prating, Too, On Their Side) Cry, A Woman's Function Plainly Is... To Talk. Poor Souls, They Are Very Reasonably Vexed!

As The Moths Around A Taper, As The Bees Around A Rose, As The Gnats Around A Vapour, So The Spirits Group And Close Round About A Holy Childhood, As If Drinking Its Repose.

I Tell You, Hopeless Grief Is Passionless.

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.

Who Can Fear Too Many Stars, Though Each In Heaven Shall Roll- Too Many Flowers, Though Each Shall Crown The Year? Say Thou Dost Love Me, Love Me, Love Me-toll The Silver Iterance!-only Minding, Dear, To Love Me Also In Silence, With Thy Soul.

Some People Always Sigh In Thanking God.

For 'tis Not In Mere Death That Men Die Most.

The Flower-girl's Prayer To Buy Roses And Pinks, Held Out In The Smoke, Like Stars By Day.

Every Age, Through Being Beheld Too Close, Is Ill-discerned By Those Who Have Not Lived Past It.

God Himself Is The Best Poet, And The Real Is His Song.

He Who Breathes Deepest Lives Most.

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.

Knowledge By Suffering Entereth, And Life Is Perfected By Death.

Pan Is Dead! Great Pan Is Dead! Pan, Pan Is Dead!

Men Get Opinions As Boys Learn To Spell By Reiteration Chiefly.

I Love Thee With The Passion Put To Use In My Old Griefs, And With My Childhood's Faith. I Love Thee With A Love I Seemed To Lose With My Lost Saints,-i Love Thee With The Breath, Smiles, Tears, Of All My Life!-and, If God Choose, I Shall But Love Thee Better After Death.

If I Leave All For Thee, Wilt Thou Exchange And Be All To Me?

Nosegays! Leave Them For The Waking, Throw Them Earthward Where They Grew Dim Are Such, Beside The Breaking Amaranths He Looks Unto. Folded Eyes See Brighter Colors Than The Open Ever Do.

An Ignorance Of Means May Minister To Greatness, But An Ignorance Of Aims Make It Impossible To Be Great At All.

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.

Eve Is A Twofold Mystery.

Where Christ Brings His Cross He Brings His Presence; And Where He Is None Are Desolate, And There Is No Room For Despair.

Let Us Be Content To Work To Do The Things We Can, And Not Presume To Fret Because It's Little.

Yes, I Answered You Last Night; No, This Morning, Sir, I Say: Colors Seen By Candle-light Will Not Look The Same By Day.

The Man, Most Man, Works Best For Men, And, If Most Men Indeed, He Gets His Manhood Plainest From His Soul: While, Obviously, This Stringent Soul Itself Obeys Our Old Rules Of Development; The Spirit Ever Witnessing In Ours, And Love, The Soul Of Soul, Within The Soul, Evolving It Sublimely.

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.

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 Should Not Dare To Call My Soul My Own.

Love Me Sweet With All Thou Art Feeling, Thinking, Seeing; Love Me In The Lightest Part, Love Me In Full Being.

I Would Confide To You Perhaps My Secret Profession Of Faith - Which Is ... Which Is ... That Let Us Say And Do What We Please And Can ... There Is A Natural Inferiority Of Mind In Women - Of The Intellect ... Not By Any Means, Of The Moral Nature - And That The History Of Art And Of Genius Testifies To This Fact Openly.

Women Know The Way To Rear Up Children (to Be Just). They Know A Simple, Merry, Tender Knack Of Tying Sashes, Fitting Baby-shoes, And Stringing Pretty Words That Make No Sense. And Kissing Full Sense Into Empty Words.

Life, Struck Sharp On Death, Makes Awful Lightning.

My Future Will Not Copy My Fair Past, I Wrote That Once. And, Thinking At My Side My Ministering Life-angel Justified The Word By His Appealing Look Upcast To The White Throne Of God.

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.

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.

Do Ye Hear The Children Weeping, O My Brothers?

You Smell A Rose Through A Fence: If Two Should Smell It, What Matter?

Of Writing Many Books There Is No End; And I Who Have Written Much In Prose And Verse For Others' Uses, Will Write Now For Mine,- Will Write My Story For My Better Self, As When You Paint Your Portrait For A Friend, Who Keeps It In A Drawer And Looks At It Long After He Has Ceased To Love You, Just To Hold Together What He Was And Is.

O Rose, Who Dares To Name Thee? No Longer Roseate Now, Nor Soft, Nor Sweet, But Pale, And Hard, And Dry, As Stubblewheat, Kept Seven Years In A Drawer, Thy Titles Shame Thee.

And Wilt Thou Have Me Fashion Into Speech The Love I Bear Thee, Finding Words Enough, And Hold The Torch Out, While The Winds Are Rough, Between Our Faces, To Cast Light On Each? - I Dropt It At Thy Feet. I Cannot Teach My Hand To Hold My Spirits So Far Off From Myself--me--that I Should Bring Thee Proof In Words, Of Love Hid In Me Out Of Reach. Nay, Let The Silence Of My Womanhood Commend My Woman-love To Thy Belief, - Seeing That I Stand Unwon, However Wooed, And Rend The Garment Of My Life, In Brief, By A Most Dauntless, Voiceless Fortitude, Lest One Touch Of This Heart Convey Its Grief.

The Man, Most Man, Works Best For Men: And, If Most Man Indeed, He Gets His Manhood Plainest From His Soul.

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.

Oh, The Little Birds Sang East, And The Little Birds Sang West.

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.

Yet How Proud We Are, In Daring To Look Down Upon Ourselves!

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.

If We Tried To Sink The Past Beneath Our Feet, Be Sure The Future Would Not Stand.

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.

But I Love You, Sir: And When A Woman Says She Loves A Man, The Man Must Hear Her, Though He Love Her Not.

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.

I Cannot Speak In Happy Tones; The Tear Drops On My Cheek Show I Am Sad; But I Can Speak Of Grace To Suffer With Submission Meek, Until Made Glad.

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.

If You Desire Faith, Then You Have Faith Enough.

Every Wish Is Like A Prayer--with God.

I Would Not Be A Rose Upon The Wall A Queen Might Stop At, Near The Palace-door, To Say To A Courtier, "pluck That Rose For Me, It's Prettier Than The Rest." O Romney Leigh! I'd Rather Far Be Trodden By His Foot, Than Lie In A Great Queen's Bosom.

In This Abundant Earth No Doubt Is Little Room For Things Worn Out: Disdain Them, Break Them, Throw Them By! And If Before The Days Grew Rough We Once Were Lov'd, Us'd -- Well Enough, I Think, We've Far'd, My Heart And I.

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.

And Each Man Stands With His Face In The Light. Of His Own Drawn Sword, Ready To Do What A Hero Can.

Will That Light Come Again, As Now These Tears Come...falling Hot And Real!

World's Use Is Cold, World's Love Is Vain, World's Cruelty Is Bitter Bane; But Is Not The Fruit Of Pain.

If Thou Must Love Me, Let It Be For Naught Except For Love's Sake Only.

And If God Choose I Shall But Love Thee Better After Death.

We Overstate The Ills Of Life, And Take Imagination... Down Our Earth To Rake.

And Chaucer, With His Infantine Familiar Clasp Of Things Divine.

Too Much Beauty, I Reckon, Is Nothing But Too Much Sun.

The Essence Of All Beauty, I Call Love.

Essence Of Beauty

Gaze Up At The Stars Knowing That I See The Same Sky And Wish The Same Sweet Dreams.

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.

A Woman's Pity Sometimes Makes Her Mad.

Who So Loves Believes The Impossible.

Two Human Loves Make One Divine.

I F Thou Must Love Me, Let It Be For Nought 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, Beloved, May Be Changed, Or Change For Thee-and Love So Wrought, May Be Unwrought So.

Tis Aye A Solemn Thing To Me To Look Upon A Babe That Sleeps-- Wearing In Its Spirit-deeps The Unrevealed Mystery Of Its Adam's Taint And Woe, Which, When They Revealed Lie, Will Not Let It Slumber So.

The Essence Of All Beauty, I Call Love, The Attribute, The Evidence, And End, The Consummation To The Inward Sense Of Beauty Apprehended From Without, I Still Call Love.

I Worked With Patience Which Means Almost Power.

Foolishness And Criticism Are So Apt, Do So Naturally Go Together!

The Denial Of Contemporary Genius Is The Rule Rather Than The Exception. No One Counts The Eagles In The Nest, Till There Is A Rush Of Wings; And Lo! They Are Flown.

I Begin To Think That None Are So Bold As The Timid, When They Are Fairly Roused.

Purple Lilies Dante Blew To A Larger Bubble With His Prophet Breath.

And I Must Bear What Is Ordained With Patience, Being Aware Necessity Doth Front The Universe With An Invincible Gesture.

Free Men Freely Work: Whoever Fears God, Fears To Sit At Ease.

Souls Are Gregarious In A Sense, But No Soul Touches Another, As A General Rule.

What Is Art But The Life Upon The Larger Scale, The Higher. When, Graduating Up In A Spiral Line Of Still Expanding And Ascending Gyres, It Pushes Toward The Intense Significance Of All Things, Hungry For The Infinite?

Whatever's Lost, It First Was Won.

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