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Quotes from Sonnets from the Portuguese — Elizabeth Barrett Browning

1806–1861 England

← All quotes by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

14 quotes

I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life!—and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.

Sonnets from the Portuguese (1850)

If thou must love me, let it be for nought
Except for love's sake only.

Sonnets from the Portuguese (1850)

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.

Sonnets from the Portuguese (1850)

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

Sonnets from the Portuguese (1850)

For frequent tears have run
The colours from my life.

Sonnets from the Portuguese (1850)

God only, who made us rich, can make us poor.

Sonnets from the Portuguese (1850)

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.

Sonnets from the Portuguese (1850)

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!

Sonnets from the Portuguese (1850)

Go from me. Yet I feel that I shall stand
Henceforward in thy shadow.

Sonnets from the Portuguese (1850)

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!

Sonnets from the Portuguese (1850)

Here's ivy! — take them, as I used to do
Thy flowers, and keep them where they shall not pine.
Instruct thine eyes to keep their colours true,
And tell thy soul, their roots are left in mine.

Sonnets from the Portuguese (1850)

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. ...

Sonnets from the Portuguese (1850)

Hush, call no echo up in further proof
Of desolation! there's a voice within
That weeps... as thou must sing... alone, aloof.

Sonnets from the Portuguese (1850)

When our two souls stand up erect and strong,
Face to face, silent, drawing nigh and nigher,
Until the lengthening wings break into fire
At either curvèd point,—what bitter wrong
Can the earth do to us, that we should not long
Be here contented?

Sonnets from the Portuguese (1850)

Attribution

Quotes and notes from Wikiquote: Elizabeth Barrett Browning (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.