Quotes from Elizabeth Barrett Browning

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.

Measure not the work until the day's out and the labor done.

My patience has dreadful chilblains from standing so long on a monument.

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 it Long after he has ceased to love you, just To hold together what he was and is.

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.

The world of books is still the world.

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.

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.

If I leave all for thee, wilt thou exchange And be all to me?

Will that light come again, As now these tears come...falling hot and real!

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)

You have touched me more profoundly than I thought even you could have touched me - my heart was full when you came here today. Henceforward I am yours for everything.

Yes, I answered you last night; No, this morning, sir, I say: Colors seen by candle-light Will not look the same by day.

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.

Beloved, let us live so well our work shall still be better for our love, and still our love be sweeter for our work.

Life loves to be taken by the lapel and told: "I'm with you kid. Let's go.

What is art but the life upon the larger scale, the higher. When, graduating up in a spiral line of still expanding and ascending gyres, it pushes toward the intense significance of all things, hungry for the infinite?

If thou must love me, let it be for naught except for love's sake only.

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...

But love me for love's sake, that evermore Thou may'st love on, through love's eternity.

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

Love doesn't make the world go round, Love is what makes the ride worthwhile!

But the child's sob in silence curses deeper / Than the strong man in his wrath.

Our Euripides the human, With his droppings of warm tears, and his touchings of things common Till they rose to meet the spheres.