Quotes from Sonnets from the Portuguese

“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.
I love thee to the level of every day's
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.
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
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.”
― Elizabeth Barrett Browning, quote from Sonnets from the Portuguese

“Quick-loving hearts ... may quickly loathe.”
― Elizabeth Barrett Browning, quote from Sonnets from the Portuguese

“If Thou Must Love Me

If thou must love me, let it be for naught
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, Belovèd, may
Be changed, or change for thee—and love, so wrought,
May be unwrought so. 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.”
― Elizabeth Barrett Browning, quote from Sonnets from the Portuguese

“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”
― Elizabeth Barrett Browning, quote from Sonnets from the Portuguese

“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.”
― Elizabeth Barrett Browning, quote from Sonnets from the Portuguese

“Will that light come again,
As now these tears come...falling hot and real!”
― Elizabeth Barrett Browning, quote from Sonnets from the Portuguese

“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.”
― Elizabeth Barrett Browning, quote from Sonnets from the Portuguese

“My letters! all dead paper, mute and white!
And yet they seem alive and quivering
Against my tremulous hands which loose the string
And let them drop down on my knee to-night.
This said, -- he wished to have me in his sight
Once, as a friend: this fixed a day in spring
To come and touch my hand ... a simple thing,
Yet I wept for it! -- this, ... the paper's light ...
Said, Dear I love thee; and I sank and quailed
As if God's future thundered on my past.
This said, I am thine -- and so its ink has paled
With lying at my heart that beat too fast.
And this ... O Love, thy words have ill availed
If, what this said, I dared repeat at last!”
― Elizabeth Barrett Browning, quote from Sonnets from the Portuguese

“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.”
― Elizabeth Barrett Browning, quote from Sonnets from the Portuguese

“Men could not part us with their worldly jars,
Nor the seas change us, nor the tempests bend;
Our hands would touch for all the mountain-bars,--
And, heaven being rolled between us at the end,
We should but vow the faster for the stars.”
― Elizabeth Barrett Browning, quote from Sonnets from the Portuguese

“Yet, love, mere love, is beautiful indeed
And worthy of acceptation. Fire is bright,
Let temple burn, or flax; an equal light
Leaps in the flame from cedar-plank or weed:
And love is fire. And when I say at need
I love thee ... mark! ... I love thee -- in thy sight
I stand transfigured, glorified aright,
With conscience of the new rays that proceed
Out of my face toward thine. There's nothing low
In love, when love the lowest: meanest creatures
Who love God, God accepts while loving so.
And what I feel, across the inferior features
Of what I am, doth flash itself, and show
How that great work of Love enhances Nature's.”
― Elizabeth Barrett Browning, quote from Sonnets from the Portuguese

“But love me for love's sake, that evermore
Thou may'st love on, through love's eternity.”
― Elizabeth Barrett Browning, quote from Sonnets from the Portuguese

“Go from me. Yet I feel that I shall stand
Henceforth in thy shadow. Nevermore
Alone upon the threshold of my door
Of individual life, I shall command
The uses of my soul, nor lift my hand
Serenely in the sunshine as before,
Without the sense of that which I forbore--
Thy touch upon the palm. The widest land
Doom takes to part us, leaves thy heart in mine
With pulses that beat double. What I do
And what I dream include thee, as the wine
Must taste of its own grapes. And when I sue
God for myself, He hears that name of thine,
And sees within my eyes the tears of two.”
― Elizabeth Barrett Browning, quote from Sonnets from the Portuguese

“Because God's gifts put man's best dreams to shame.”
― Elizabeth Barrett Browning, quote from Sonnets from the Portuguese

“Men could not part us with their worldly jars, Nor the seas change us, nor the tempests bend; Our hands would touch for all the mountain-bars: And, heaven being rolled between us at the end, We should but vow the faster for the stars.”
― Elizabeth Barrett Browning, quote from Sonnets from the Portuguese

“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.”
― Elizabeth Barrett Browning, quote from Sonnets from the Portuguese

“Why, conquering
May prove as lordly and complete a thing
In lifting upward, as in crushing low!
And as a vanquished soldier yields his sword
To one who lifts him from the bloody earth,
Even so, Belovëd, I at last record,
Here ends my strife. If thou invite me forth,
I rise above abasement at the word.
Make thy love larger to enlarge my worth!”
― Elizabeth Barrett Browning, quote from Sonnets from the Portuguese

“How, Dearest, wilt thou have me for most use?
A hope, to sing by gladly? or a fine
Sad memory, with thy songs to interfuse?
A shade, in which to sing—of palm or pine?
A grave, on which to rest from singing? Choose.”
― Elizabeth Barrett Browning, quote from Sonnets from the Portuguese

“I love thee to the level of every day's
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.”
― Elizabeth Barrett Browning, quote from Sonnets from the Portuguese

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