September 21, 2017


ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING (1806-1861) IS ONE OF THE MOST CELEBRATED ENGLISH POETS OF THE VICTORIAN ERA.

“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, If I Leave All for Thee, Wilt Thou Exchange (Sonnet 35)

“How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach”
~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning, How Do I Love Thee? (Sonnet 43)

“Love me sweet
With all thou art
Feeling, thinking, seeing, ―
Love me in the Lightest part,
Love me in full Being.”
~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning, A Man’s Requirements

“Earth’s crammed with heaven,          
And every common bush afire with God;        
But only he who sees, takes off his shoes,     
The rest sit round it and pluck blackberries,”
~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Aurora Leigh

“You were made perfectly to be loved and surely I have loved you in the idea of you my whole life long.”
~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning, The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, 1845-1846

“The little cares that fretted me,
I lost them yesterday
Among the fields above the sea,
Among the winds that play,
Among the lowing of the herd,
The rustling of the trees,
Among the singing of the birds,
The humming of the bees.”
~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Out In The Fields With God

“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 a girl?”
~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Aurora Leigh (1856), Book II, line 732.

“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, But Only Three in All God’s Universe (Sonnet 2)

“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.”
~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning, The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Browning: 1845-1846

“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.”
~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning, The House of Clouds

“Will that light come again,
As now these tears come―falling hot and real?”
~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning, I See Thine Image through My Tears To-Night (Sonnet 30)

“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, If I Leave All for Thee, Wilt Thou Exchange (Sonnet 35)

“All actual heroes are essential men,
And all men possible heroes…”
~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Aurora Leigh, Book Five

“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, My poet, Thou Canst Touch on All the Notes (Sonnet 17)

“The heart doth recognise thee,
Alone, alone! The heart doth smell thee sweet,
Doth view thee fair, doth judge thee most complete,—
Though seeing now those changes that disguise thee.”
~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning, A Dead Roses

Tanvir Shameem Tanvir Shameem is not the biggest fan of teaching, but he is doing his best to write on various topics of language and literature just to guide thousands of students and researchers across the globe. You can always find him experimenting with presentation, style and diction. He will contribute as long as time permits. You can find him on:

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