Elizabeth Barrett Browning Poems

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by Browning, Elizabeth Barrett

 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.

Nosegays! leave them for the waking:
Throw them earthward where they grew.
Dim are such, beside the breaking
Amaranths he looks unto---
Folded eyes see brighter colours than the open ever do.

Heaven-flowers, rayed by shadows golden
From the...Read more of this...

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by Browning, Elizabeth Barrett

 I heard an angel speak last night,
And he said 'Write!
Write a Nation's curse for me,
And send it over the Western Sea.'

I faltered, taking up the word:
'Not so, my lord!
If curses must be, choose another
To send thy curse against my brother.

'For I am bound by gratitude,
By love and blood,
To brothers of mine across the sea,
Who stretch out kindly hands to...Read more of this...

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by Browning, Elizabeth Barrett

 O Rose! who dares to name thee?
No longer roseate now, nor soft, nor sweet;
But pale, and hard, and dry, as stubble-wheat,---
Kept seven years in a drawer---thy titles shame thee.

The breeze that used to blow thee
Between the hedgerow thorns, and take away
An odour up the lane to last all day,---
If breathing now,---unsweetened would forego thee.

The sun that used to smite...Read more of this...

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by Browning, Elizabeth Barrett

 I 

Love me Sweet, with all thou art, 
Feeling, thinking, seeing; 
Love me in the lightest part, 
Love me in full being. 

II 

Love me with thine open youth 
In its frank surrender; 
With the vowing of thy mouth, 
With its silence tender. 

III 

Love me with thine azure eyes, 
Made for earnest grantings; 
Taking colour from the skies,...Read more of this...

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by Browning, Elizabeth Barrett

WHAT was he doing the great god Pan  
Down in the reeds by the river? 
Spreading ruin and scattering ban  
Splashing and paddling with hoofs of a goat  
And breaking the golden lilies afloat 5 
With the dragon-fly on the river. 

He tore out a reed the great god Pan  
From the deep cool bed of...Read more of this...

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by Browning, Elizabeth Barrett

 We walked beside the sea,
After a day which perished silently
Of its own glory---like the Princess weird
Who, combating the Genius, scorched and seared,
Uttered with burning breath, 'Ho! victory!'
And sank adown, an heap of ashes pale;
So runs the Arab tale.

The sky above us showed
An universal and unmoving cloud,
On which, the cliffs permitted us to see
Only the outline of their majesty,
As master-minds,...Read more of this...

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by Browning, Elizabeth Barrett

 She has laughed as softly as if she sighed,
She has counted six, and over,
Of a purse well filled, and a heart well tried -
Oh, each a worthy lover!
They "give her time"; for her soul must slip
Where the world has set the grooving;
She will lie to none with her fair red lip:
But love seeks truer loving.

She trembles her fan in...Read more of this...

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by Browning, Elizabeth Barrett

 [Book 1]
I am like,
They tell me, my dear father. Broader brows
Howbeit, upon a slenderer undergrowth
Of delicate features, -- paler, near as grave ;
But then my mother's smile breaks up the whole,
And makes it better sometimes than itself.
So, nine full years, our days were hid with God
Among his mountains : I was just thirteen,
Still growing like the plants from unseen...Read more of this...

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by Browning, Elizabeth Barrett

 SPEAK low to me, my Saviour, low and sweet
From out the hallelujahs, sweet and low
Lest I should fear and fall, and miss Thee so
Who art not missed by any that entreat.
Speak to mo as to Mary at thy feet !
And if no precious gums my hands bestow,
Let my tears drop like amber while I go
In reach of thy divinest...Read more of this...

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by Browning, Elizabeth Barrett

 LIGHT human nature is too lightly tost
And ruffled without cause, complaining on--
Restless with rest, until, being overthrown,
It learneth to lie quiet. Let a frost
Or a small wasp have crept to the inner-most
Of our ripe peach, or let the wilful sun
Shine westward of our window,--straight we run
A furlong's sigh as if the world were lost.
But what time through the heart...Read more of this...

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by Browning, Elizabeth Barrett

 God, God! 
With a child’s voice I cry, 
Weak, sad, confidingly— 
God, God! 
Thou knowest, eyelids, raised not always up 
Unto Thy love (as none of ours are), droop 
As ours, o’er many a tear! 
Thou knowest, though Thy universe is broad, 
Two little tears suffice to cover all: 
Thou knowest, Thou, who art so prodigal 
Of beauty, we...Read more of this...

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by Browning, Elizabeth Barrett

I TELL you hopeless grief is passionless; 
That only men incredulous of despair  
Half-taught in anguish through the midnight air 
Beat upward to God's throne in loud access 
Of shrieking and reproach. Full desertness 5 
In souls as countries lieth silent-bare 
Under the blanching vertical eye-glare 
Of the absolute Heavens. Deep-hearted man express 
Grief for thy Dead in silence...Read more of this...

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by Browning, Elizabeth Barrett

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. 
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height 
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight 
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace. 
I love thee to the level of every day's 
Most quiet need, by sun and candlelight. 
I love thee freely, as men strive...Read more of this...

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by Browning, Elizabeth Barrett

 We sow the glebe, we reap the corn, 
We build the house where we may rest, 
And then, at moments, suddenly, 
We look up to the great wide sky, 
Inquiring wherefore we were born… 
For earnest or for jest? 

The senses folding thick and dark 
About the stifled soul within, 
We guess diviner things beyond, 
And yearn to them...Read more of this...

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by Browning, Elizabeth Barrett

 I.

Dead ! One of them shot by the sea in the east,
And one of them shot in the west by the sea.
Dead ! both my boys ! When you sit at the feast
And are wanting a great song for Italy free,
Let none look at me !

II.
Yet I was a poetess only last year,
And good at my art, for a...Read more of this...

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by Browning, Elizabeth Barrett

 I.

ENOUGH ! we're tired, my heart and I.
We sit beside the headstone thus,
And wish that name were carved for us.
The moss reprints more tenderly
The hard types of the mason's knife,
As heaven's sweet life renews earth's life
With which we're tired, my heart and I.

II.
You see we're tired, my heart and I.
We dealt with books, we trusted men,
And in our own...Read more of this...

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by Browning, Elizabeth Barrett

I MIND me in the days departed, 
How often underneath the sun 
With childish bounds I used to run 
To a garden long deserted. 

The beds and walks were vanish'd quite; 5 
And wheresoe'er had struck the spade, 
The greenest grasses Nature laid, 
To sanctify her right. 

I call'd the place my wilderness, 
For no one enter'd there but I....Read more of this...

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by Browning, Elizabeth Barrett

 I.
I stand on the mark beside the shore
Of the first white pilgrim's bended knee,
Where exile turned to ancestor,
And God was thanked for liberty.
I have run through the night, my skin is as dark,
I bend my knee down on this mark . . .
I look on the sky and the sea.

II.
O pilgrim-souls, I speak to you!
I see you come out...Read more of this...

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by Browning, Elizabeth Barrett

 With stammering lips and insufficient sound
I strive and struggle to deliver right
That music of my nature, day and night
With dream and thought and feeling interwound
And inly answering all the senses round
With octaves of a mystic depth and height
Which step out grandly to the infinite
From the dark edges of the sensual ground.
This song of soul I struggle to outbear
Through portals...Read more of this...

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by Browning, Elizabeth Barrett

 The woman singeth at her spinning-wheel
A pleasant chant, ballad or barcarole;
She thinketh of her song, upon the whole,
Far more than of her flax; and yet the reel
Is full, and artfully her fingers feel
With quick adjustment, provident control,
The lines--too subtly twisted to unroll--
Out to a perfect thread. I hence appeal
To the dear Christian Church--that we may do
Our Father's business in...Read more of this...

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