Elizabeth Barrett Browning Quotes

“Deep violets, you liken to The kindest eyes that look on you, Without a thought disloyal.”

“XI I sang his name instead of song; Over and over I sang his name: Backward and forward I sang it along, With my sweetest notes, it was still the same! I sang it low, that the slave-girls near Might never guess, from what they could hear, That all the song was a name.”

“For frequent tears have run; The colours from my life.”

“Yet how proud we are,In daring to look down upon ourselves!”

“Will that light come again, As now these tears come...falling hot and real!”

“Large, musing eyes, neither joyous nor sorry.”

“Girls blush, sometimes, because they are alive, half wishing they were dead to save the shame. The sudden blush devours them, neck and brow; They have drawn too near the fire of life, like gnats, and flare up bodily, wings and all. What then? Who's sorry for a gnat or girl?”

“Eyes of gentianellas azure,Staring, winking at the skies.”

“The little cares that fretted me, I lost them yesterday Among the fields above the sea, Among the winds at play.”

“Sing, seraph with the glory! heaven is high.Sing, poet with the sorrow! earth is low.The universe's inward voices cry"Amen" to either song of joy and woe.Sing, seraph, poet! sing on equally!”

“What I do and what I dream include thee, as the wine must taste of its own grapes.”

“How joyously the young sea-mewLay dreaming on the waters blue,Whereon our little bark had thrownA little shade, the only one;But shadows ever man pursue.”

“O brave poets, keep back nothing; Nor mix falsehood with the whole! Look up Godward! speak the truth in Worthy song from earnest soul! Hold, in high poetic duty, Truest Truth the fairest Beauty.”

“His ears were often the first thing to catch my tears.”

“I, who had had my heart full for hours, took advantage of an early moment of solitude, to cry in it very bitterly. Suddenly a little hairy head thrust itself from behind my pillow into my face, rubbing its ears and nose against me in a responsive agitation, and drying the tears as they came.”

“For poets (bear the word) Half-poets even, are still whole democrats.”

“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.”

“Too much beauty, I reckon, is nothing but too much sun.”

“Foolishness and criticism are so apt, do so naturally go together!”

“True knowledge comes only through suffering.”

“Get leave to work In this world,--'tis the best you get at all.”

“Don't get me wrong-painting's all right. But now that we have photography, what's the point?”

“He who breathes deepest lives most.”

“We can't separate our humanity from our poetry.”

“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.”