Famous Barrett Poems by Famous Poets

These are examples of famous Barrett poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous barrett poems. These examples illustrate what a famous barrett poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).

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A Child Asleep

...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 bright...Read more of this...
by Browning, Elizabeth Barrett


A Curse For A Nation

...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...Read more of this...
by Browning, Elizabeth Barrett

A Dead Rose

...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...Read more of this...
by Browning, Elizabeth Barrett

A Mans Requirements

...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, 
Can Heaven's truth...Read more of this...
by Browning, Elizabeth Barrett

A Musical Instrument

...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 the river; 
The limpid water turbidly ran  
And the br...Read more of this...
by Browning, Elizabeth Barrett


A Sea-Side Walk

...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
...Read more of this...
by Browning, Elizabeth Barrett

A Womans Shortcomings

...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 a sweetness dumb,
As her tho...Read more of this...
by Browning, Elizabeth Barrett

Aurora Leigh (excerpts)

...[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 pla...Read more of this...
by Browning, Elizabeth Barrett

Comfort

...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 voice complete
In humanest affection -- thus, ...Read more of this...
by Browning, Elizabeth Barrett

De Profundis

...I

The face, which, duly as the sun, 
Rose up for me with life begun, 
To mark all bright hours of the day 
With hourly love, is dimmed away—
And yet my days go on, go on.

II 

The tongue which, like a stream, could run
Smooth music from the roughest stone, 
And every morning with ' Good day'
Make each day good, is hushed away,
And yet my days go on, go o...Read more of this...
by Browning, Elizabeth Barrett

Discontent

...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 t...Read more of this...
by Browning, Elizabeth Barrett

From ‘The Soul's Travelling'

...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 are oft but stricken deer...Read more of this...
by Browning, Elizabeth Barrett

Grief

...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 ...Read more of this...
by Browning, Elizabeth Barrett

How Do I Love Thee?

...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 candle-light.
I love thee freely, as men strive for right.
I love thee purely, as they turn from praise.
I l...Read more of this...
by Browning, Elizabeth Barrett

Human Life's Mystery

...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 with yearning fond; 
We strike out...Read more of this...
by Browning, Elizabeth Barrett

Mother and Poet

...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 woman, men said ;
But this woman, this, who is agonized here,
-- The east sea a...Read more of this...
by Browning, Elizabeth Barrett

My Heart and I

...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 o...Read more of this...
by Browning, Elizabeth Barrett

The Deserted Garden

...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. 10 
The sh...Read more of this...
by Browning, Elizabeth Barrett

The Souls Expression

...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 strugg...Read more of this...
by Browning, Elizabeth Barrett

Work And Contemplation

...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--...Read more of this...
by Browning, Elizabeth Barrett

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