Background Image

...

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.

-Elizabeth Barrett Browning

...

Please Wait....
Translating....

I Remember, When I

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

...

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.

Views: 3

Topic

More From Elizabeth Barrett Browning

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!

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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?"

And Is It Not The Chief Good Of Money, The Being Free From The Need Of Thinking Of It?

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

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

A Woman's Pity Sometimes Makes Her Mad.

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.

Folded Eyes See Brighter Colors Than The Open Ever Do.

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

Who So Loves Believes The Impossible.

Light Tomorrow With Today!

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.

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

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

The Plague Of Gold Strikes Far And Near.

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

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.

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.

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

Many A Crown Covers Bald Foreheads.

He Who Breathes Deepest Lives Most.

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

How Many Desolate Creatures On The Earth Have Learnt The Simple Dues Of Fellowship And Social Comfort, In A Hospital.

Books Are Men Of Higher Stature.

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?

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

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

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.

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

Art Is Much, But Love Is More.

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.

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!

For Poets (bear The Word) Half-poets Even, Are Still Whole Democrats.

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.

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

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

My Sun Sets To Raise Again.

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

The Large White Owl That With Eye Is Blind, That Hath Sate For Years In The Old Tree Hollow, Is Carried Away In A Gust Of Wind.

Life Treads On Life, And Heart On Heart; We Press Too Close In Church And Mart To Keep A Dream Or Grave Apart.

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

Friendship Love

Eve Is A Twofold Mystery.

When God Helps All The Workers For His World, The Singers Shall Have Help Of Him, Not Last.

Since When Was Genius Found Respectable?

Many A Fervid Man Writes Books As Cold And Flat As Graveyard Stones.

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

The Essence Of All Beauty, I Call Love.

Essence Of Beauty

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

He Lives Most Life Whoever Breathes Most Air.

And Friends, Dear Friends,--when It Shall Be That This Low Breath Is Gone From Me, And Gone My Bier Ye Come To Weep, Let One, Most Loving Of You All, Say, "not A Tear Must O'er Her Fall; He Giveth His Beloved Sleep.

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

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

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

Quick-loving Hearts ... May Quickly Loathe.

This Race Is Never Grateful: From The First, One Fills Their Cup At Supper With Pure Wine, Which Back They Give At Cross-time On A Sponge, In Bitter Vinegar.

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.

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

Earth's Crammed With Heaven.

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

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

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)

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

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.

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

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.

A Grave, On Which To Rest From Singing?

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

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

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

Never Say No When The World Says Aye.

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

Deep Violets, You Liken To The Kindest Eyes That Look On You, Without A Thought Disloyal.

Do Ye Hear The Children Weeping, O My Brothers?

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

No Man Can Be Called Friendless Who Has God And The Companionship Of Good Books.

Funny Friendship

Some People Always Sigh In Thanking God.

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.'

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

A Man May Love A Woman Perfectly, And Yet By No Means Ignorantly Maintain A Thousand Women Have Not Larger Eyes. Enough That She Alone Has Looked At Him With Eyes That, Large Or Small, Have Won His Soul.

How Do I Love Thee? Let Me Count The Ways.

Through Heaven And Earth God's Will Moves Freely, And I Follow It, As Color Follows Light. He Overflows The Firmamental Walls With Deity, Therefore With Love; His Lightnings Go Abroad, His Pity May Do So, His Angels Must, Whene'er He Gives Them Charges.

Oh, A Day In The City-square, There Is No Such Pleasure In Life!

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

The Tyrant Should Take Heed To What He Doth, Since Every Victim-carrion Turns To Use, And Drives A Chariot, Like A God Made Wroth, Against Each Piled Injustice.

Of Writing Many Books There Is No End.

Books, Books, Books! I Had Found The Secret Of A Garret Room Piled High With Cases In My Father’s Name; Piled High, Packed Large,--where, Creeping In And Out Among The Giant Fossils Of My Past, Like Some Small Nimble Mouse Between The Ribs Of A Mastodon, I Nibbled Here And There At This Or That Box, Pulling Through The Gap, In Heats Of Terror, Haste, Victorious Joy, The First Book First. And How I Felt It Beat Under My Pillow, In The Morning’s Dark, An Hour Before The Sun Would Let Me Read! My Books!

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

Earth May Embitter, Not Remove, The Love Divinely Given; And E'en That Mortal Grief Shall Prove The Immortality Of Love, And Lead Us Nearer Heaven.

O Pusillanimous Heart, Be Comforted And, Like A Cheerful Traveller, Take The Road Singing Beside The Hedge.

And Marlowe, Webster, Fletcher, Ben, Whose Fire-hearts Sowed Our Furrows When The World Was Worthy Of Such Men.

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

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.

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?

Think, In Mounting Higher, The Angels Would Press On Us, And Aspire To Drop Some Golden Orb Of Perfect Song Into Our Deep, Dear Silence.

And There My Little Doves Did Sit With Feathers Softly Brown And Glittering Eyes That Showed Their Right To General Nature's Deep Delight.

I Work With Patience, Which Is Almost Power.

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.

Most Illogical Irrational Nature Of Our Womanhood, That Blushes One Way, Feels Another Way, And Prays, Perhaps Another!

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.

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

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.

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.

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

True Knowledge Comes Only Through Suffering.

Measure Not The Work Until The Day's Out And The Labor Done.

Books Succeed; And Lives Fail.

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.

In Your Patience Ye Are Strong.

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.

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.

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

Children Use The Fist Until They Are Of Age To Use The Brain.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

Truth Outlives Pain, As The Soul Does Life.

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

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

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

Suddenly, As Rare Things Will, It Vanished.

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.

And I Smiled To Think God's Greatness Flowed Around Our Incompleteness; Round Our Restlessness, His Rest.

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

Utterance Is The Evidence Of Foregone Study.

O, Brothers! Let Us Leave The Shame And Sin Of Taking Vainly In A Plaintive Mood, The Holy Name Of Grief--holy Herein, That, By The Grief Of One, Came All Our Good.

So Mothers Have God's License To Be Missed.

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

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

The Devil's Most Devilish When Respectable.

It Is Difficult To Get Rid Of People When You Once Have Given Them Too Much Pleasure.

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

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.

Whoever Lives True Life, Will Love True Love.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

You're Something Between A Dream And A Miracle.

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

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

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.

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.

When We First Met And Loved, I Did Not Build Upon The Event With Marble. . . .

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.

I, Who Thought To Sink, Was Caught Up Into Love, And Taught The Whole Of Life In A New Rhythm.

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.

Silence Is The Best Response To A Fool.

Souls Are Dangerous Things To Carry Straight Through All The Spilt Saltpetre Of This World.

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

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

Definition Of Love: A Score Of Zero In Tennis. I Love Thee With The Breath, Smiles, Tears Of All My Life.

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

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

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.

Whoso Loves, Believes In The Impossible

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

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.

There Are Nettles Everywhere, But Smooth, Green Grasses Are More Common Still; The Blue Of Heaven Is Larger Than The Cloud.

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

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.

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.

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.

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!

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

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.

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.

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

We Can't Separate Our Humanity From Our Poetry.

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.

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

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.

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

Trending Author

Florence Scovel Shinn

Condoleezza Rice

Category