Elizabeth Barrett Browning quotes & passages

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.I love thee to the depth and breadth and heightMy soul can reach, when feeling out of sightFor the ends of Being and ideal Grace.I love thee to the level of everyday’sMost quiet need, by sun and candlelight.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 useIn my old griefs, and with my childhood’s faith.I love thee with a love I seemed to loseWith 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 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 thoughtThat falls in well with mine, and certes broughtA sense of pleasant ease on such a day”—For these things in themselves, Belovëd, mayBe changed, or change for thee,—and love, so wrought,May be unwrought so. Neither love me forThine own dear pity’s wiping my cheeks dry,—A creature might forget to weep, who boreThy comfort long, and lose thy love thereby!But love me for love’s sake, that evermoreThou may’st love on, through love’s eternity.

The face of all the world is changed, I think,Since first I heard the footsteps of thy soulMove still, oh, still, beside me, as they stoleBetwixt me and the dreadful outer brinkOf obvious death, where I, who thought to sink,Was caught up into love, and taught the wholeOf life in a new rhythm. The cup of doleGod gave for baptism, I am fain to drink,And praise its sweetness, Sweet, with thee anear.The names of country, heaven, are changed awayFor where thou art or shalt be, there or here;And this . . . this lute and song . . . loved yesterday,(The singing angels know) are only dearBecause thy name moves right in what they say.