Quotes from Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Because God's gifts put man's best dreams to shame.

I take her as God made her, and as men Must fail to unmake her, for my honoured wife.

A cheerful genius suits the times, / And all true poets laugh unquenchably / Like Shakespeare and the gods.

I am one who could have forgotten the plague, listening to Boccaccio's stories; and I am not ashamed of it.

At painful times, when composition is impossible and reading is not enough, grammars and dictionaries are excellent for distraction.

His answer was - not the common gallantries which come so easily to the lips of me - but simply that he loved me - he met argument with fact. He told me - that with himself also, the early freshness of youth had gone by, & that throughout it he had not been able to love any woman - that he loved now for the first time & the last.

The wisest word man reaches is the humblest he can speak.

And I breathe large at home. I drop my cloak, Unclasp my girdle, loose the band that ties My hair...now could I but unloose my soul! We are sepulchred alive in this close world, And want more room.

I shall but love thee bitter after death

The face of all the world is changed, I think Since first I heard the footsteps of thy soul.

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.

I begin to think that none are so bold as the timid, when they are fairly roused.

The soul hath snatched up mine all faint and weak, And placed it by thee on a golden throne, -- And that I love (O soul, we must be meek!) Is by thee only, whom I love alone.

A harmless life, she called a virtuous life, A quiet life, which was not life at all . . .

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.

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.

I love thee freely, as men strive for Right; I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise. I love thee with passion put to use In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.

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)

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.

The great chasm between the thing I say, & the thing I would say, wd be quite dispiriting to me, in spite even of such kindnesses as yours, if the desire did not master the despondency.

Say over again, and yet once over again, That thou dost love me...-toll The silver iterance!

Thou comest! all is said without a word.

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!

Betwixt me and the dreadful outer brink Of obvious death, where I, who thought to sink, Was caught up into love, and taught the whole Of life in a new rhythm.