Elizabeth Barrett Browning Quotes

You smell a rose through a fence:
If two should smell it, what matter?

You smell a rose through a fence:
If two should smell it, what matter?

And a breastplate made of daisies,
Closely fitting, leaf on leaf,
Periwinkles interlaced
Drawn read more

And a breastplate made of daisies,
Closely fitting, leaf on leaf,
Periwinkles interlaced
Drawn for belt about the waist;
While the brown bees, humming praises,
Shot their arrows round the chief.

How he sleepeth! having drunken
Weary childhood's mandragore,
From his pretty eyes have sunken
read more

How he sleepeth! having drunken
Weary childhood's mandragore,
From his pretty eyes have sunken
Pleasures to make room for more--
Sleeping near the withered nosegay which he pulled the day
before.

First time he kiss'd me, he but only kiss'd
The fingers of this hand wherewith I write;
read more

First time he kiss'd me, he but only kiss'd
The fingers of this hand wherewith I write;
And ever since it grew more clean and white.

There's not a crime
But takes its proper change out still in crime
If once rung on read more

There's not a crime
But takes its proper change out still in crime
If once rung on the counter of this world.

O, brothers! let us leave the shame and sin
Of taking vainly in a plaintive mood,
The read more

O, brothers! let us leave the shame and sin
Of taking vainly in a plaintive mood,
The holy name of Grief--holy herein,
That, by the grief of One, came all our good.

I wish I were the lily's leaf
To fade upon that bosom warm,
Content to wither, pale read more

I wish I were the lily's leaf
To fade upon that bosom warm,
Content to wither, pale and brief,
The trophy of thy paler form.

Thank God, bless God, all ye who suffer not
More grief than ye can weep for. That is well--
read more

Thank God, bless God, all ye who suffer not
More grief than ye can weep for. That is well--
That is light grieving!

Pray, pray, thou who also weepest,--
And the drops will slacken so;
Weep, weep--and the watch thou read more

Pray, pray, thou who also weepest,--
And the drops will slacken so;
Weep, weep--and the watch thou keepest,
With a quicker count will go.
Think,--the shadow on the dial
For the nature most undone,
Marks the passing of the trial,
Proves the presence of the sun.

That headlong ivy! not a leaf will grow
But thinking of a wreath, . . .
I read more

That headlong ivy! not a leaf will grow
But thinking of a wreath, . . .
I like such ivy; bold to leap a height
'Twas strong to climb! as good to grow on graves
As twist about a thyrsus; pretty too
(And that's not ill) when twisted round a comb.