Elizabeth Barrett Browning was a well-known Victorian poet who published Poems in 1844, to great reviews. She married fellow writer, Robert Browning, and moved with him to Italy. Her work was incredibly influential and can be found in Emily Dickinson’s and Edgar Allan Poe’s poetry. Read more about Elizabeth Barrett Browning.
In ‘Sonnet 43’, or ‘How Do I Love Thee? Let Me Count the Ways’ the speaker is proclaiming her unending passion for her beloved.
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.
‘Hiram Powers’ Greek Slave’ is a deeply powerful account of seeing a sculpture which evokes feelings of both beauty and suffering.
They say Ideal beauty cannot enter
The house of anguish. On the threshold stands
An alien Image with enshackled hands,
Called the Greek Slave! as if the artist meant her
‘Paraphrase on Anacreon: Ode to the Swallow,’ is a translation of a Greek lyric poem in which the speaker explains that love constantly (and annoyingly) inhabits their heart.
Thou indeed, little Swallow,
A sweet yearly comer.
Art building a hollow
New nest every summer.
‘A Dead Rose’ mourns the short-lived nature of beauty, with vivid imagery and poignant emotions.
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.
‘My Kate’ by Elizabeth Barrett Browning is a sorrowful elegy dedicated to a morally righteous and important woman who has passed away.
She was not as pretty as women I know,
And yet all your best made of sunshine and snow
Drop to shade, melt to nought in the long-trodden ways,
While she's still remembered on warm and cold days--
Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s poem celebrates the ethereal beauty of a sleeping child and his profound connection to the divine.
How he sleepeth! having drunken
Weary childhood's mandragore,
From his pretty eyes have sunken
Pleasures, to make room for more---
‘If thou must love me’ (Sonnet 14) by Elizabeth Barrett Browning declares the speaker’s intentions for how she is to be loved.
If thou must love me, let it be for nought
Except for love's sake only. Do not say,
"I love her for her smile—her look—her way
Of speaking gently,—for a trick of thought
‘Let the world’s sharpness’ (Sonnet 24) is a poem that proposes a resolution to the world’s strife — all turn to, and accept, Love.
Let the world's sharpness, like a clasping knife,
Shut in upon itself and do no harm
In this close hand of Love, now soft and warm,
And let us hear no sound of human strife
‘A False Step’ written by Elizabeth Barret Browning explores how a woman regrets her heartless action taken during her youth.
Sweet, thou hast trod on a heart.
Pass! there's a world full of men;
And women as fair as thou art
Must do such things now and then.
‘A Musical Instrument’ by Elizabeth Barrett Browning describes the decimation of a riverbed and the crafting of the god Pan’s famous flute.
High on the shore sate the great god Pan,
While turbidly flowed the river ;
And hacked and hewed as a great god can,
With his hard bleak steel at the patient reed,
‘Change Upon Change’ by Elizabeth Barrett Browning is a poem about lost love and change. The poet depicts her internal changes through images of the changing seasons.
Five months ago the stream did flow,
The lilies bloomed within the sedge,
And we were lingering to and fro,
Where none will track thee in this snow,
‘Died..’ by Elizabeth Barrett Browning explores the impact of a man’s death while also exploring the immorality of passing judgements, good or bad.
What shall we add now? He is dead.
And I who praise and you who blame,
With wash of words across his name,
Find suddenly declared instead--
‘First News from Villafranca’ is a protest poem written in reaction to the Villafranca Armistice (11 July 1859) between Emperors Napoleon III of France and Francis Joseph I of Austria.
Peace, peace, peace, do you say?
What! — with the enemy's guns in our ears?
With the country's wrong not rendered back?
What! — while Austria stands at bay
‘George Sand: A Desire’ by Elizabeth Barrett Browning is a poem dedicated to the French writer Amantine-Lucile-Aurore Dupin.
Thou large-brained woman and large-hearted man,
Self-called George Sand! whose soul, amid the lions
Of thy tumultuous senses, moans defiance
And answers roar for roar, as spirits can:
‘Grief’ by Elizabeth Barrett Browning tells of the necessary conditions for feeling true grief and the way it transforms one’s body and soul.
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
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,
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
‘Patience Taught By Nature’ reminds readers that there is a whole world beyond one’s own that is uninfluenced by the problems of human life.
‘O DREARY life,’ we cry, ‘O dreary life!’
And still the generations of the birds
Sing through our sighing, and the flocks and herds
Serenely live while we are keeping strife
‘Sabbath Morning at Sea’ by Elizabeth Barrett Browning describes the experiences of a speaker trapped on board a ship at sea.
The ship went on with solemn face;
To meet the darkness on the deep,
The solemn ship went onward.
I bowed down weary in the place;
Say over again, and yet once over again,
That thou dost love me. Though the word repeated
Should seem "a cuckoo-song," as thou dost treat it,
Remember, never to the hill or plain,
‘Sonnet 16’ by Elizabeth Barrett Browning, also known as ‘And yet, because thou overcomest so,’ speaks to the poet’s intention to live happily from now on.
And yet, because thou overcomest so,
Because thou art more noble and like a king,
Thou canst prevail against my fears and fling
Thy purple round me, till my heart shall grow
‘Sonnet 20’ by Elizabeth Barrett Browning, also known as ‘Beloved, my Beloved, when I think’ explores the ways that a new love changed a speaker’s life.
Beloved, my Beloved, when I think
That thou wast in the world a year ago,
What time I sate alone here in the snow
And saw no footprint, heard the silence sink
‘Sonnet 29’ by Elizabeth Barrett Browning is one of Browning’s best-loved sonnets. It is a moving love poem dedicated to the poet’s husband that expresses her devotion to him.
I think of thee!—my thoughts do twine and bud
About thee, as wild vines, about a tree,
Put out broad leaves, and soon there 's nought to see
Except the straggling green which hides the wood.
‘Sonnet 35’ by Elizabeth Barrett Browning expresses the speaker’s worries about the changes in her life. She embarks on a new life with her beloved and hopes he’s ready to accept her in the same way she’s accepting him.
If I leave all for thee, wilt thou exchange
And be all to me? Shall I never miss
Home-talk and blessing and the common kiss
That comes to each in turn, nor count it strange,
‘Sonnet 7’ by Elizabeth Barrett Browning is a love sonnet that is dedicated to the poet’s husband, Robert Browning. It expresses her happiness that he came into her life and changed her outlook as he did.
The face of all the world is changed, I think,
Since first I heard the footsteps of thy soul
Move still, oh, still, beside me, as they stole
Betwixt me and the dreadful outer brink
‘Sonnet 8’ by Elizabeth Barrett Browning, also known as ‘What can I give thee back, O liberal,’ is a Petrarchan sonnet. It explores the poet’s relationship with her new lover, Robert Browning.
What can I give thee back, O liberal
And princely giver, who hast brought the gold
And purple of thine heart, unstained, untold,
And laid them on the outside of the-wall
WHAT'S the best thing in the world ?
June-rose, by May-dew impearled;
Sweet south-wind, that means no rain;
Truth, not cruel to a friend;
Do ye hear the children weeping, O my brothers,
Ere the sorrow comes with years ?
They are leaning their young heads against their mothers, —
And that cannot stop their tears.
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 Forced Recruit’ by Elizabeth Barrett Browning tells the very real story of a brave Italian man who was forced to fight against his country.
In the ranks of the Austrian you found him,
He died with his face to you all;
Yet bury him here where around him
You honor your bravest that fall.
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