Elizabeth Barrett Browning Quotes

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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 Quotes: You were made perfectly to
I heard an angel speak last night/And he said, "Write!"
Elizabeth Barrett Browning Quotes: I heard an angel speak
New angel mine, unhoped for in the world!
Elizabeth Barrett Browning Quotes: New angel mine, unhoped for
How many desolate creatures on the earth have learnt the simple dues of fellowship and social comfort, in a hospital.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning Quotes: How many desolate creatures on
Suddenly, as rare things will, it vanished.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning Quotes: Suddenly, as rare things will,
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!"
Elizabeth Barrett Browning Quotes: And that dismal cry rose
I begin to think that none are so bold as the timid, when they are fairly roused.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning Quotes: I begin to think that
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.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning Quotes: I would confide to you
Italy/Is one thing, England one.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning Quotes: Italy/Is one thing, England one.
A harmless life, she called a virtuous life,
A quiet life, which was not life at all ...
Elizabeth Barrett Browning Quotes: A harmless life, she called
Beloved, let us live so well our work shall still be better for our love, and still our love be sweeter for our work.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning Quotes: Beloved, let us live so
His ears were often the first thing to catch my tears.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning Quotes: His ears were often the
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 Quotes: Why, conquering<br />May prove as
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.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning Quotes: God keeps a niche<br>In Heaven,
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.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning Quotes: The growing drama has outgrown
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.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning Quotes: And friends, dear friends,<br>when it
There are nettles everywhere, but smooth, green grasses are more common still; the blue of heaven is larger than the cloud.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning Quotes: There are nettles everywhere, but
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.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning Quotes: Pray, pray, thou who also
I have done most of my talking by post of late years
as people shut up in dungeons take up with scrawling mottoes on the walls.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning Quotes: I have done most of
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.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning Quotes: This race is never grateful:
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!
Elizabeth Barrett Browning Quotes: Books, books, books! I had
Some people always sigh in thanking God.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning Quotes: Some people always sigh in
When we first met and loved, I did not build Upon the event with marble ...
Elizabeth Barrett Browning Quotes: When we first met and
The picture of helpless indolence she calls herself
sublimely helpless and impotent
I had done living I thought
Was ever life so like death before? My face was so close against the tombstones,
that there seemed no room for tears.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning Quotes: The picture of helpless indolence
For none can express thee, though all should approve thee.
I love thee so, Dear, that I only can love thee.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning Quotes: For none can express thee,
If we tried To sink the past beneath our feet, be sure The future would not stand.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning Quotes: If we tried To sink
My patience has dreadful chilblains from standing so long on a monument.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning Quotes: My patience has dreadful chilblains
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.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning Quotes: XI<br>I sang his name instead
Love doesn't make the world go round, Love is what makes the ride worthwhile!
Elizabeth Barrett Browning Quotes: Love doesn't make the world
Yet how proud we are,
In daring to look down upon ourselves!
Elizabeth Barrett Browning Quotes: Yet how proud we are,<br>In
But so fair, She takes the breath of men away Who gaze upon her unaware.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning Quotes: But so fair, She takes
The essence of all beauty, I call love.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning Quotes: The essence of all beauty,
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.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning Quotes: My future will not copy
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)
Elizabeth Barrett Browning Quotes: She lived, we'll say,<br>A harmless
May the good God pardon all good men.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning Quotes: May the good God pardon
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 Quotes: I remember, when I was
I think of thee!-my thoughts do twine and bud
About thee, as wild vines, about a tree ...
Yet, O my palm-tree, be it understood
I will not have my thoughts instead of thee
Who art dearer, better!
Elizabeth Barrett Browning Quotes: I think of thee!-my thoughts
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!
Elizabeth Barrett Browning Quotes: The Holy Night We sate
The wisest word man reaches is the humblest he can speak.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning Quotes: The wisest word man reaches
Definition of Love: A score of zero in tennis. I love thee with the breath, Smiles, tears of all my life.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning Quotes: Definition of Love: A score
Learn to win a lady's faith
Nobly, as the thing is high;
Bravely as for life and death -
With a loyal gravity.
Lead her from the festive boards,
Point her to the starry skies,
Guard her, by your truthful words,
Pure from courtship's flatteries.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning Quotes: Learn to win a lady's
Experience, like a pale musician, holds a dulcimer of patience in his hand.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning Quotes: Experience, like a pale musician,
Unless you can muse in a crowd all day On 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!
Elizabeth Barrett Browning Quotes: Unless you can muse in
The chances are that, being a woman, young,
And pure, with such a pair of large, calm eyes,
You write as well ... and ill ... upon the whole,
As other women. If as well, what then?
If even a little better,..still, what then?
We want the Best in art now, or no art. (L144-149)
Elizabeth Barrett Browning Quotes: The chances are that, being
At painful times, when composition is impossible and reading is not enough, grammars and dictionaries are excellent for distraction.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning Quotes: At painful times, when composition
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.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning Quotes: Men of science, osteologists And
The critics say that epics have died out with Agamemnon and the goat-nursed gods; I'll not believe it. I could never deem as Payne Knight did, that Homer's heroes measured twelve feet high. They were but men: -his Helen's hair turned grey like any plain Miss Smith's who wears a front; And Hector's infant whimpered at a plume as yours last Friday at a turkey-cock. All heroes are essential men, and all men possible heroes: every age, heroic in proportions, double faced, looks backward and before, expects a morn and claims an epos.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning Quotes: The critics say that epics
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!
Elizabeth Barrett Browning Quotes: A woman cannot do the
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.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning Quotes: Anybody is qualified, according to
Souls are gregarious in a sense, but no soul touches another, as a general rule.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning Quotes: Souls are gregarious in a
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 Quotes: My letters! all dead paper,
The face of all the world is changed, I think,
Since first I heard the footsteps of they soul
Move still, oh, still, beside me ...
Elizabeth Barrett Browning Quotes: The face of all the
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.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning Quotes: For me, my heart, that
Earth's crammed with Heaven.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning Quotes: Earth's crammed with Heaven.
Say over again, and yet once over again,
That thou dost love me ... -toll
The silver iterance!
Elizabeth Barrett Browning Quotes: Say over again, and yet
O Life,
How oft we throw it off and think, - 'Enough,
Enough of life in so much! - here's a cause
For rupture; - herein we must break with Life,
Or be ourselves unworthy; here we are wronged,
Maimed, spoiled for aspiration: farewell Life!'
- And so, as froward babes, we hide our eyes
And think all ended. - Then, Life calls to us
In some transformed, apocryphal, new voice,
Above us, or below us, or around .
Perhaps we name it Nature's voice, or Love's,
Tricking ourselves, because we are more ashamed
To own our compensations than our griefs:
Still, Life's voice! - still, we make our peace with Life.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning Quotes: O Life,<br>How oft we throw
I cannot speak in happy tones.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning Quotes: I cannot speak in happy
The exchange of sympathy for gratitude is the most princely thing!
Elizabeth Barrett Browning Quotes: The exchange of sympathy for
For poets (bear the word) Half-poets even, are still whole democrats.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning Quotes: For poets (bear the word)
An ignorance of means may minister to greatness, but an ignorance of aims make it impossible to be great at all.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning Quotes: An ignorance of means may
But since he had The genius to be loved, why let him have The justice to be honoured in his grave.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning Quotes: But since he had The
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.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning Quotes: Unless you can feel when
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 lov'd, us'd
well enough, I think, we've far'd, my heart and I.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning Quotes: In this abundant earth no
I love you for the part of me that you bring out.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning Quotes: I love you for the
With stammering lips and insufficient sound I strive and struggle to deliver right the music of my nature.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning Quotes: With stammering lips and insufficient
I work with patience, which is almost power.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning Quotes: I work with patience, which
I only thought
Of lying quiet there where I was thrown
Like sea-weed on the rocks, and suffer her
To prick me to a pattern with her pin,
Fibre from fibre, delicate leaf from leaf,
And dry out from my drowned anatomy
The last sea-salt left in me.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning Quotes: I only thought<br />Of lying
I shall but love thee bitter after death
Elizabeth Barrett Browning Quotes: I shall but love thee
And Chaucer, with his infantine Familiar clasp of things divine.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning Quotes: And Chaucer, with his infantine
Two human loves make one divine.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning Quotes: Two human loves make one
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.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning Quotes: Sleep on, Baby, on the
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.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning Quotes: How joyously the young sea-mew<br>Lay
Yes, I answered you last night; No, this morning, sir, I say: Colors seen by candle-light Will not look the same by day.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning Quotes: Yes, I answered you last
Nor mourn, O living One, because her part in life was mourning:
Would she have lost the poet's fire for the anguish of the burning?
The minstrel harp, for the strained string? tripod for the afflated
Woe, or the vision, for those tears in which it shone dilated?
Elizabeth Barrett Browning Quotes: Nor mourn, O living One,
Books succeed; and lives fail.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning Quotes: Books succeed; and lives fail.
Children use the fist until they are of age to use the brain.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning Quotes: Children use the fist until
The least flower, with brimming cup, may stand and share its dew drop with another near.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning Quotes: The least flower, with brimming
Knowledge by suffering entereth,
And life is perfected by death.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning Quotes: Knowledge by suffering entereth,<br>And life
Death forerunneth Love to win "Sweetest eyes were ever seen."
Elizabeth Barrett Browning Quotes: Death forerunneth Love to win
You believe
In God, for your part?
that He who makes
Can make good things from ill things, best from worst,
As men plant tulips upon dunghills when
They wish them finest.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning Quotes: You believe<br>In God, for your
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.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning Quotes: Why, what is to live?
There, that is our secret: go to sleep! You will wake, and remember, and understand.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning Quotes: There, that is our secret:
I take her as God made her, and as men Must fail to unmake her, for my honoured wife.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning Quotes: I take her as God
Truth outlives pain, as the soul does life.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning Quotes: Truth outlives pain, as the
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.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning Quotes: Nosegays! leave them for the
Good aims not always make good books.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning Quotes: Good aims not always make
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.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning Quotes: I would not be a
The beautiful seems right by force of beauty and the feeble wrong because of weakness.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning Quotes: The beautiful seems right by
And if God choose
I shall but love thee better after death.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning Quotes: And if God choose <br>
The flower-girl's prayer to buy roses and pinks, held out in the smoke, like stars by day.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning Quotes: The flower-girl's prayer to buy
Whatever's lost, it first was won.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning Quotes: Whatever's lost, it first was
I worked with patience which means almost power.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning Quotes: I worked with patience which
And Marlowe, Webster, Fletcher, Ben, Whose fire-hearts sowed our furrows when The world was worthy of such men.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning Quotes: And Marlowe, Webster, Fletcher, Ben,
"There is no God," the foolish saith, But none, "There is no sorrow." And nature oft the cry of faith In bitter need will borrow: Eyes which the preacher could not school, By wayside graves are raised; And lips say, "God be pitiful," Who ne'er said, "God be praised."
Elizabeth Barrett Browning Quotes:
A woman's pity sometimes makes her mad.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning Quotes: A woman's pity sometimes makes
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 Quotes: Go from me. Yet I
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!
Elizabeth Barrett Browning Quotes: We all have known good
He lives most life whoever breathes most air.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning Quotes: He lives most life whoever
The English have a scornful insular way Of calling the French light.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning Quotes: The English have a scornful
Many a fervid man writes books as cold and flat as graveyard stones.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning Quotes: Many a fervid man writes
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