Wind Down To Poetry: Elizabeth Barrett Browning

A reading of 14 poems written by Elizabeth Barrett Browning, including "How Do I Love Thee", "Grief", and "Consolation". Wind down and relax while listening to these poems that resonate with themes of devotion, loss, and solace.

Transcript

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 candlelight.

I love Thee freely as men stride for a right.

I love Thee surely as they turn from praise.

I love with a passion put to use in my old griefs and with my childhood's faith.

I love Thee with a love I seem to lose with my lost saints.

I love Thee with the breath,

Smiles,

Tears of all my life.

And if God choose,

I shall love Thee better after death.

I tell you,

Hopeless grief is passionless.

That only men,

Incredulous of despair,

Half-taught in anguish,

Brew the midnight air,

Beat upward to God's throne in loud access,

A shrieking in reproach,

Full desertness in souls as countries,

Lieth silent bare under the blanching,

Vertical-eye glare of the absolute heavens.

Deep-hearted man,

Express grief for thy dead in silence like to death.

Most,

Like in a monumental statue set,

An everlasting watch in moveless woe,

Till itself crumble to the dust beneath,

Touch it.

The marble eyelids are not wet.

If it could weep,

It could arise and go.

Exaggeration We overstate the ills of life and take imagination,

Given us to bring down the choirs of singing angels overshone by God's clear glory,

Down our earth to rake the dismal snows instead,

Flake following flake.

To cover all the corn,

We walk upon the shadow of hills,

Across the level throne,

In pant-like climbers,

Near the older break.

We sigh so loud,

The nightingale within refuses to sing loud,

As else she would.

O brothers,

Let us leave the shame and sin of taking vanity.

In a plaintive mood,

The holy name of grief,

Holy,

Herein,

That by the grief of one can fall our good.

Discontent Light human nature is too lightly tossed 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 innermost of our ripe peach,

Or let the willful sun shine westward of our window.

Straight,

We run,

A furloughed sigh,

As if the world were lost.

But what time,

Through the heart and through the brain,

God hath transfixed us.

We,

So moved before,

Attain to a calm.

I,

Shouldering weights of pain,

We anchor in deep waters,

Safe from shore,

And here submissive,

Over the stormy main.

God's chartered judgments walk forevermore.

Cheerfulness taught by reason I think we are too ready with complaint in this fair world of God's.

Had we no hope,

Indeed,

Beyond the zenith and the slope,

Beyond the grey blank of sky,

We might grow faint to muse upon eternity's constraint.

Round are aspirant souls,

But since the scope must widen early,

It is well to droop,

For a few days consumed in loss and taint.

O,

Chaslemous heart,

To be comforted,

And like a cheerful traveller,

Take the roads singing beside the hedge.

What if the bread be bitter in thine inn,

And now unshod,

To meet the flints?

At least,

It may be said,

Because the way is short,

I thank thee,

God.

Change upon change Five months ago,

The stream did flow,

The lilies bloomed within the sedge,

And we were lingering to and fro,

For none will track thee in the snow,

Along the stream,

Beside the hedge,

As we be free to love and go.

For if I do not hear thy foot,

The frozen river is as mute,

The flowers have dried down to the root,

And why,

Since these be changed since May,

Shouldst thou change less than day?

And slow,

Slow,

As the winter snow,

The tears have drifted to mine eyes,

And my poor cheeks,

Five months ago,

Set blushing at thy praises so,

Put paleness on for a disguise,

Last week,

Be free to praise and go,

For if my face is turned to pale,

It was thine oath that first did fail,

It was thy love crude,

False,

And frail,

And why,

Since these be changed now,

Should I change less than thou?

And apprehension If all the gentlest,

Hearted friends I know concentrated in one heart,

Their gentleness,

That still brew gentler kill,

Its pulse was less,

Sure life,

Than pity,

I should yet thee slow to bring my own heart nakedly below the palm of such a friend,

That he should press motive,

Condition,

Means,

Appliances,

My false ideal of joy and fickle woe,

Helpful to light and knowledge,

I should fear,

Some plate between the brows,

Some rougher chime in the free voice,

O angels,

Let your flood of bitter scorn dash on me,

I do ye hear,

What I say,

Who hear calmly all the time,

This everlasting face to face with God,

Adequacy Now,

By the verdue on thy thousand hills,

Beloved England,

Doth the earth appear quite good enough for men to overbear the will of God in with rebellious wills,

We cannot say the morning sun fulfills ingloriously its course,

Nor that the clear strong stars,

Without significance in sphere or habitation,

We,

Meantime,

Our ills heap up against this good and lift a cry,

Against this workday world,

This ill-spread feast,

As if ourselves were better certainly than what we come to,

Maker and High Priest,

I ask thee,

Not my joys to multiply,

Only to make me worthier of the least.

A Woman's 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,

O 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 thoughts were beyond recalling,

With a glance for one and a glance for some,

From her eyelids rising and falling,

Speaks common words with a blushful air,

Hears bold words unreproving,

But her silence says what she never will swear,

And love seeks better loving,

Go lady,

Lean to the night guitar,

And drop a smile to the bringer,

Then smile as sweetly when he is bar,

At the voice of an indoor singer,

Bask tenderly beneath tender eyes,

Glance lightly on their removing,

Enjoin new vows to old perjuries,

But dare not call it loving,

Unless you can think when the song is done,

No other is soft in the rhythm,

Unless you can feel when left by one,

That all men else go with him,

Unless you can know when unpraised by his breath,

That your beauty itself wants proving,

Unless you can swear for life for death,

Hope fear to call it loving,

Unless you can use in a crowd all day,

On the absent face that fixed you,

Unless you can love as the angels may,

With the breath of heaven betwixt you,

Unless you can dream that his faith is fast,

Through behooving and behooving,

Unless you can die when the dream is past,

Oh never call it loving.

A Seaside 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 a burning breath,

Oh victory,

And sank it down,

A heap of ashes pale,

So runs the air of kale,

The sky above us showed,

A universal and unmoving cloud,

On which the cliffs permitted us to see,

Only the outline of their majesty,

As masterminds when gazed at by the crowd,

In shining with a gloom,

The water grey,

Swan in its moon taught way,

Nor moon no stars were out,

They did not dare to tread so soon about,

Though trembling in the footsteps of the sun,

The light was neither nights nor days but one,

Which lifelike had a beauty in its doubt,

And silence and passion breathings round,

Seemed wandering into sound,

Oh solemn beating heart of nature,

I have knowledge that thou art,

Bound on two lands by cords he cannot sever,

And what time they are slackened by him ever,

So to attest his own supernal part,

Still runneth thy vibration fast and strong,

The slackened cord along,

For though we never spoke,

Of the grey water and now the shaded rock,

Dark wave and stone unconsciously were fused,

Into the plaintive speaking that we used,

Of absent friends and memories unforesook,

And had we seen each other's face,

We had seen happily each was sad,

All are not taken,

There are left behind,

Living beloveds,

Tender looks to bring,

And make the daylight still a happy thing,

And tender voices to make soft the wind,

But if it were not so,

If I could find,

No love in all this world for comforting,

Nor any path but hollow we did ring,

Were dust to dust joined,

And if,

Before those sepulchres unmoving,

I stood alone,

As some forsaken lamb,

Goes bleeding up the moors in weary dearth,

Crying,

Where are ye,

Oh my loved and loving,

I know a voice would sound,

Daughter I am,

Can I suffice,

For heaven and not earth,

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 mow,

As to marry at thy feet,

And if no precious comes,

My hands bestow,

Let my tears drop like amber,

While I go,

In reach of thy,

Divinest voice complete,

In humanist affection,

Thus ensueth,

To lose the sense of losing,

As a child,

Whose songbird seeks the wood forevermore,

Is sung to in its stead,

By mother's mouth,

Till,

Sinking on her breast,

Love reconciled,

He sleeps the faster,

That he wept before,

I have been in the meadows all the day,

And gathered there the nose-gay that you see,

Singing within myself,

As bird or bee,

When such do fieldwork,

On a morn of May,

But now I look upon my flowers,

Decay,

Has met them in my hands,

More fatally,

Because more warmly clasped,

And sobs are free,

To come instead of songs,

What do you say,

Sweet counselors,

Dear friends,

That I should go back straight away,

To the fields and gather more,

Another sooth,

May do it,

But not I,

My heart is very tired,

My strength is low,

My hands are full of blossoms,

Plucked before,

Held dead within them,

Till myself shall die,

My heart and 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 night,

As sweet life renews,

First life,

With which we're tired,

My heart and I,

You see we're tired,

My heart and I,

We dealt with books,

We trusted men,

And in our own blood,

Drenched the pen,

As if such colors could not fly,

We walked too straight,

For fortune's end,

We loved too true,

To keep a friend,

At last we're tired,

My heart and I,

How tired we feel,

My heart and I,

We seem of no use in the world,

Our fancies hang gray and uncurled,

About men's eyes indifferently,

Our voice which thrilled you so,

Will let you sleep,

Our tears are only wet,

What do we hear,

My heart and I,

So tired,

So tired,

My heart and I,

It was not thus,

In that old time,

When Ralph sat with me,

Neath the lime,

To watch the sunset,

From the sky,

Dear love,

You're looking tired,

He said,

I,

Smiling at him,

Shook my head,

Tis now we're tired,

My heart and I,

So tired,

So tired,

My heart and I,

Though now,

None takes me on his arm,

To fold me close,

And kiss me warm,

Till each quick breath,

And then a sigh,

A happy linger,

Now alone,

We lean upon this graveyard stone,

And cheered,

And kissed,

My heart and I,

Tired out we are,

My heart and I,

Suppose the world,

Brought diadem,

To tempt us,

Crusted with loose gems,

Of powers and pleasures,

Let it try,

We scarcely care,

To look at even,

A pretty child,

Or God's blue heaven,

We feel so tired,

My heart and I,

Yet who complains,

My heart and I,

In this abundant earth,

No doubt,

Is little room,

For things worn out,

Disdain them,

Break them,

Throw them by,

And if before,

The days grew rock,

We once were loved,

Used,

Well enough,

I think we've fared,

My heart and I.