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A Woman’s Last Word
by Robert Browning
Let’s contend no more, Love,
Strive nor weep:
All be as before, Love
- Only sleep!
What so wild as words are?
I and thou
In debate, as birds are,
Hawk on bough!
See the creature stalking
While we speak!
Hush and hide the talking,
Cheek on cheek!
What so false as truth is,
False to thee?
Where the serpents tooth is,
Shun the tree-
Wherer the apple reddens
Never pry -
Lest we lose our Edens,
Eve and I.
Be a god and hold me
With a charm!
Be a man and fold me
With thine arm!
Teach me, only teach, Love!
As I ought
I will speak thy speech, Love,
Think thy thought -
Meet, if thou require it,
As I ought
I will speak thy speech, Love,
Think thy thought -
Meet, if thou require it,
Both demands,
Laying flesh and spirit
In thy hands.
That shall be to-morrow
Not to-night:
I must bury sorrow
Out of sight:
- Must a little weep, Love,
(Foolish me!)
And so fall asleep, Love,
Loved by thee.
I Loved Her for That She Was Beautiful
by Philip James Bailey (1816 - 1902)
I loved her for that she was beautiful;
And that to me she seem’d to be all Nature,
And all varieties of things in one:
Would set at night in clouds of tears, and rise
All light and laughter in the morning; fear
No petty customs nor appearances;
But think what others only dream’d about;
And say what others did but think; and do
What others dared not do: so pure withal
In soul; in heart and act such conscious yet
Such perfect innocence, she made round her
A halo of delight. ‘Twas these which won me;
And that she never school’d within her breast
One thought or feeling, but gave holiday
To all; and that she made all even mine
In the communion of love: and we
Grew like each other, for we loved each other;
She, mild and generous as the air in spring;
And I, like earth all budding out with love.
To Harriet
by Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792 1822)
Whose is the love that, gleaming through the world,
Wards off the poisonous arrow of its scorn?
Whose is the warm and partial praise,
Virtue’s most sweet reward?
Beneath whose looks did my reviving soul
Riper in truth and virtuous daring grow?
Whose eyes have I gazed fondly on,
And loved mankind the more?
Harriet! on thine: thou wert my purer mind;
Thou wert the inspiration of my song;
Thine are these early wilding flowers,
Though garlanded by me.
Then press into thy breast this pledge of love;
And know, though time may change and years may roll,
Each floweret gathered in my heart
It consecrates to thine.