Clareified

So, we’ll try to do four poems by women. Try. Here’s a lovely love poem by Elizabeth Barrett Browning (how awesome is that name to say? I feel smarter and more significant just uttering her name: Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Well, I also say it with a British accent, whilst wearing a monocle and balancing a pipe betwixt my lips. Whilst! Betwixt! I didn’t even KNOW those words before saying Elizabeth Barrett Browning. The poem seems fairly advanced and highbrow, but when you get right down to it, she just wants to be loved. Aww, you go Elizabeth Barrett Browning.

Sonnet 14 – If thou must love me, let it be for nought by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

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
That falls in well with mine, and certes brought
A sense of pleasant ease on such a day’—
For these things in themselves, Beloved, may
Be changed, or change for thee,—and love, so wrought,
May be unwrought so. Neither love me for
Thine own dear pity’s wiping my cheeks dry,—
A creature might forget to weep, who bore
Thy comfort long, and lose thy love thereby!
But love me for love’s sake, that evermore
Thou mayst love on, through love’s eternity.

This entry was posted by Dawn Summers on Wednesday, March 3rd, 2010 at 12:29 pm and is filed under Poetry. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.