These 25 Elizabeth Barrett Browning love quotes express the depth, power and passion love brings to life.
It goes without saying that any collection of quotes about love should feature the words of Romantic poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning – and not simply because of the beauty and power of her words but also because of the great love story that was her life.
As a former high school English teacher, I loved teaching poetry from both of the Brownings, and explaining to my students that Robert had read the works of Elizabeth and been so moved that he’d kick started some written correspondence.
That written correspondence would become the vehicle of their love story and amass to almost 600 letters before they eloped and went to live in Italy, where she would die some 15 years later in his arms.
(Intrigued? Here’s more information about their lives together).
In fact, consider these lines in his first missive: “I love your verses with all my heart, dear Miss Barrett—I do, as I say, love these verses with all my heart.”
Talk about dripping in romance.
(Here’s some sweet romantic quotes if you want more).
I can only imagine how a woman, who had been an isolated invalid for so many years, would have felt her whole world start to open up before her when she read those words.
Marriage was good for Elizabeth’s literary endeavors, and over her short life, Elizabeth wrote many impactful works (one of my faves being “The runaway slave at Pilgrim’s Point” – I did feature a short extract here though if you know the work, one can’t really say that it’s the stuff of love poetry) around the theme of love.
In addition, the letters she wrote to and about Robert during their courtship also makes for super romantic reading.
This collection of 25 Elizabeth Barrett Browning love quotes has been selected from said letters and poems for your reading pleasure.
You might also like: 45 Jane Austen quotes about love.
Best in the world, you are; no one is like you.
Alas, I have grieved so I am hard to love.
Yet love me–wilt thou? Open thine heart wide,
And fold within, the wet wings of thy dove.
And knowing me perfectly, he has entirely loved me—!
Beloved, let us live so well our work shall still be better for our love, and still our love be sweeter for our work.
But love me for love’s sake, that evermore
Thou mayst love on, through love’s eternity.
…He made me feel with every breath I drew in his presence, that he loved me with no ordinary affection.
First time he kissed me, he but only kissed
The fingers of this hand wherewith I write;
And, ever since, it grew more clean and white.
He told me – that with himself also, the early freshness of youth had gone by, and that throughout it he had not been able to love any woman – that he loved now for the first time and the last.
How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach.
I feel happy and exalting to belong to you, past every opposition, out of sight of every will of man—none can put us asunder, now, at least. I have a right now openly to love you, and to hear other people call it a duty, when I do, … knowing that if it were a sin, it would be done equally.
If thou must love me, let it be for naught except for love’s sake only.
I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life; and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.
If I leave all for thee, wilt thou exchange
And be all to me?
I sang his name instead of song;
Over and over I sang his name.
Love me sweet
With all thou art
Feeling, thinking, seeing;
Love me in the Lightest part,
Love me in full Being.
Was ever any in the world, in any possible world, so perfectly good & dear to another as you are to me!
Men could not part us with their worldly jars,
Nor the seas change us, nor the tempests bend;
Our hands would touch for all the mountain-bars,–
And, heaven being rolled between us at the end,
We should but vow the faster for the stars.
The face of all the world is changed, I think
Since first I heard the footsteps of thy soul
… The greatest proof of love I could give you is to be happy because of you, and even you cannot judge and see how great a proof that is. You have lifted my very soul up into the light of your soul, and I am not ever likely to mistake it for the common daylight.
Thou comest! all is said without a word.
You were made perfectly to be loved – and surely I have loved you, in the idea of you, my whole life long.
Unless you can muse in a crowd all day
On the absent face that fixed you;
Unless you can love, as the angels may,
With the breadth of heaven betwixt you;
Unless you can dream that his faith is fast,
Through behoving and unbehoving;
Unless you can die when the dream is past —
Oh, never call it loving!
What I do
And what I dream include thee, as the wine
Must taste of its own grapes.
Whoso loves believes the impossible.
You have touched me more profoundly than I thought even you could have touched me – my heart was full when you came here today. Henceforward I am yours for everything.
You might also like: Love quotes and messages for all occasions.
Love was an important theme in Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s works and life. Expressing this theme in the written word left a legacy for us to enjot.
From the well known lines through to more obscure citations, this beautiful collection of Elizabeth Barrett Browning love quotes is perfect for cards, vows, and the warm fuzzies.