A Poem by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Beloved, my Beloved, when I think
That thou wast in the world a year ago,
What time I sat alone here in the snow
And saw no footprint, heard the silence sink
No moment at thy voice … but, link by link,
Went counting all my chains, as if that so
They never could fall off at any blow
Struck by thy possible hand … why, thus I drink
Of life’s great cup of wonder! Wonderful,
Never to feel thee thrill the day or night
With personal act or speech,—nor ever cull
Some prescience of thee with the blossoms white
Thou sawest growing! Atheists are as dull,
Who cannot guess God’s presence out of sight.

[Analysis of Sonnet 20 (Beloved, my Beloved, when I think)]

A Poem by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

If I leave all for thee, wilt thou exchange
And be all to me? Shall I never miss
Home-talk and blessing and the common kiss
That comes to each in turn, nor count it strange,
When I look up, to drop on a new range
Of walls and floors, another home than this?
Nay, wilt thou fill that place by me which is
Filled by dead eyes too tender to know change?
That‘s hardest. If to conquer love, has tried,
To conquer grief, tries more, as all things prove;
For grief indeed is love and grief beside.

Alas, I have grieved so l am hard to love.

Yet love me—wilt thou? Open thine heart wide,
And fold within the wet wings of thy dove.

[Analysis of Sonnet 35]

A Poem by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

What can I give thee back, O liberal
And princely giver, who hast brought the gold
And purple of thine heart, unstained, untold,
And laid them on the outside of the wall
For such as I to take or leave withal,
In unexpected largesse? am I cold,
Ungrateful, that for these most manifold
High gifts, I render nothing back at all?
Not so; not cold, — but very poor instead.
Ask God who knows. For frequent tears have run
The colors from my life, and left so dead
And pale a stuff, it were not fitly done
To give the same as pillow to thy head.
Go farther! let it serve to trample on.

[Analysis of Sonnet 8]

A Poem by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Say over again, and yet once over again,
That thou dost love me. Though the word repeated
Should seem “a cuckoo-song,” as thou dost treat it,
Remember, never to the hill or plain,
Valley and wood, without her cuckoo-strain
Comes the fresh Spring in all her green completed.
Belovèd, I, amid the darkness greeted
By a doubtful spirit-voice, in that doubt’s pain
Cry, “Speak once more—thou lovest!” Who can fear
Too many stars, though each in heaven shall roll,
Too many flowers, though each shall crown the year?
Say thou dost love me, love me, love me—toll
The silver iterance!—only minding, Dear,
To love me also in silence with thy soul.

[Analysis of Say over again… (Sonnet 21)]

“Say over again” — Sonnet 21, a reading:

A Poem by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

What’s the best thing in the world?
June-rose, by May-dew impearled;
Sweet south-wind, that means no rain;
Truth, not cruel to a friend;
Pleasure, not in haste to end;
Beauty, not self-decked and curled
Till its pride is over-plain;
Light, that never makes you wink;
Memory, that gives no pain;
Love, when, so, you’re loved again.
What’s the best thing in the world?
—Something out of it, I think.

[Analysis of The Best Thing in the World]

The Best Thing in the World, a reading:

A Poem by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Let the world’s sharpness, like a clasping knife,
Shut in upon itself and do no harm
In this close hand of Love, now soft and warm,
And let us hear no sound of human strife
After the click of the shutting. Life to life –
I lean upon thee, Dear, without alarm,
And feel as safe as guarded by a charm
Against the stab of worldlings, who if rife
Are weak to injure. Very whitely still
The lilies of our lives may reassure
Their blossoms from their roots, accessible
Alone to heavenly dews that drop not fewer,
Growing straight, out of man’s reach, on the hill.
God only, who made us rich, can make us poor.

[Analysis of “Let the world’s sharpness…” Sonnets from the Portuguese (XXIV)]

A Poem by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Thou large-brained woman and large-hearted man,
Self-called George Sand! whose soul, amid the lions
Of thy tumultuous senses, moans defiance
And answers roar for roar, as spirits can:
I would some mild miraculous thunder ran
Above the applauded circus, in appliance
Of thine own nobler nature’s strength and science,
Drawing two pinions, white as wings of swan,
From thy strong shoulders, to amaze the place
With holier light! that thou to woman’s claim
And man’s, mightst join beside the angel’s grace
Of a pure genius sanctified from blame
Till child and maiden pressed to thine embrace
To kiss upon thy lips a stainless fame.

[Analysis of George Sand: A Desire]

A Poem by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

What shall we add now? He is dead.
And I who praise and you who blame,
With wash of words across his name,
Find suddenly declared instead–
“On Sunday, third of August, dead.’

Which stops the whole we talked to-day.
I quickened to a plausive glance
At his large general tolerance
By common people’s narrow way,
Stopped short in praising. Dead, they say.

And you, who had just put in a sort
Of cold deduction–“rather, large
Through weakness of the continent marge,
Than greatness of the thing contained’–
Broke off. Dead!–there, you stood restrained.

As if we had talked in following one
Up some long gallery. “Would you choose
An air like that? The gait is loose–
Or noble.’ Sudden in the sun
An oubliette winks. Where is he? Gone.

Dead. Man’s “I was’ by God’s “I am’–
All hero-worship comes to that.
High heart, high thought, high fame, as flat
As a gravestone. Bring your Jacet jam–
The epitaph’s an epigram.

Dead. There’s an answer to arrest
All carping. Dust’s his natural place?
He’ll let the flies buzz round his face
And, though you slander, not protest?
–From such an one, exact the Best?

Opinions gold or brass are null.
We chuck our flattery or abuse,
Called Caesar’s due, as Charon’s dues,
I’ the teeth of some dead sage or fool,
To mend the grinning of a skull.

Be abstinent in praise and blame.
The man’s still mortal, who stands first,
And mortal only, if last and worst.
Then slowly lift so frail a fame,
Or softly drop so poor a shame.

[Analysis of Died..]