If thou must love me, let it be for nought
Except for love's sake only. Do not say
i"I love her for her smile--her look--her way
Of speaking gently,--for a trick of thought
That falls in well with mine, and certes brought
A sense of pleasant ease on such a day" -/i
For these things in themselves, Beloved, may
Be changed, or change for thee,--and love, so wrought,
May be unwrought so. Neither love me for
Thine own dear pity's wiping my cheeks dry, -
A creature might forget to weep, who bore
Thy comfort long, and lose thy love thereby!
But love me for love's sake, that evermore
Thou may'st love on, through love's eternity.
(C) Elizabeth Barrett Browning
03/26/2017
Best Poems of Elizabeth Barrett Browning
- Xxx
- Sonnet 24 - Let The Worlds Sharpness, Like A Clasping Knife
- Sonnet 21 - Say Over Again, And Yet Once Over Again
- Sonnet 06 - Go From Me. Yet I Feel That I Shall Stand
- Sonnet 26 - I Lived With Visions For My Company
- The Cry Of The Children
- A Musical Instrument
- The Best Thing In The World
- Sonnet 10 - Yet, Love, Mere Love, Is Beautiful Indeed
- Sonnet 42 - my Future Will Not Copy Fair My Past
- Sonnet Ii
- Sonnet 27 - My Own Beloved, Who Hast Lifted Me
- Sonnet 35 - If I Leave All For Thee, Wilt Thou Exchange
- Bianca Among The Nightingales
- Grief
- Sonnet 36 - When We Met First And Loved, I Did Not Build
- Sonnet 25 - A Heavy Heart, Beloved, Have I Borne
- Sonnet 03 - Unlike Are We, Unlike, O Princely Heart!
- Sonnet 11 - And Therefore If To Love Can Be Desert
- Sonnet 09 - Can It Be Right To Give What I Can Give?
- Sonnet 18 - I Never Gave A Lock Of Hair Away