Elizabeth Barrett Browning Quotes
-
I seek no copy now of life's first half: Leave here the pages with long musing curled, And write me new my future's epigraph, New angel mine, unhoped for in the world!
-
Take from my head the thorn-wreath brown! No mortal grief deserves that crown. O supreme Love, chief misery, The sharp regalia are for Thee Whose days eternally go on!'For us, - whatever's undergone, Thou knowest, willest what is done, Grief may be joy misunderstood; Only the Good discerns the good. I trust Thee while my days go on.
-
Go from me. Yet I feel that I shall standHenceforward in thy shadow.
-
I tell you, hopeless grief is passionless.
-
Unless you can muse in a crowd all dayOn 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!
-
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!'
-
Because God's gifts put man's best dreams to shame.
-
The face, which, duly as the sun, Rose up for me with life begun, To mark all bright hours of the day With hourly love, is dimmed away - And yet my days go on, go on.
-
Dreams of doing goodFor good-for-nothing people.
-
Instruct me how to thank thee! Oh, to shoot My soul's full meaning into future years, That they should lend it utterance, and salute Love that endures, from life that disappears!
-
Whoso lovesBelieves the impossible.
-
Thou hast thy calling to some palace-floor, Most gracious singer of high poems! where The dancers will break footing, from the care Of watching up thy pregnant lips for more.
-
Hush, call no echo up in further proof Of desolation! there's a voice within That weeps . . . as thou must sing . . . alone, aloof.
-
Whatever's lost, it first was won; We will not struggle nor impugn. Perhaps the cup was broken here, That Heaven's new wine might show more clear. I praise Thee while my days go on.
-
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 itLong after he has ceased to love you, justTo hold together what he was and is.
-
Oh, the little birds sang east, and the little birds sang west.
-
The cypress stood up like a churchThat night we felt our love would hold,And saintly moonlight seemed to searchAnd wash the whole world clean as gold;The olives crystallized the vales'Broad slopes until the hills grew strong:The fireflies and the nightingalesThrobbed each to either, flame and song.The nightingales, the nightingales.
-
The beautiful seems rightBy force of Beauty, and the feeble wrongBecause of weakness.
-
And I said in underbreath -All our life is mixed with death, -And who knoweth which is best?And I smiled to think God's greatnessFlowed around our incompleteness, - Round our restlessness, His rest.
-
Thou large-brained woman and large-hearted man.
-
What I do and what I dream include thee, as the wine must taste of its own grapes.
-
Good critics, who have stamped out poets' hope,Good statesmen, who pulled ruin on the state,Good patriots, who for a theory risked a cause.
-
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.I cannot feelThat all is well, when dark'ning clouds concealThe shining sun;But then I knowGod lives and loves; and say, since it is so, 'Thy will be done.'
-
Therefore to this dog will I,Tenderly not scornfully,Render praise and favor:With my hand upon his head,Is my benediction saidTherefore and for ever.