Elizabeth Barrett Browning

"'Guess now who holds thee?'--'Death,' I said. But, there,
The silver answer rang,--'Not Death, but Love.'"
(E.B. Browning, pg 530, from Sonnets from the Portuguese)

After reading the few sonnets posted and life history of E.B. Browning, I wonder if love spared her life some extra years. I mean the happiness from love of course. Most people, as we saw with Keats, did not recover strength after being deathly ill with tuberculosis. She was not young for those days when Robert first wrote to her and had been sick for some time. The lines above show her own surprise in the matter. I think the world is lucky to have caught a tale of real-life love in writing like this. This unexpected addition to her life makes for a fantastic story in such expressive language.

"...A ring of amethyst
I could not wear here, plainer to my sight,
Than that first kiss."
(pg 532)

She holds back no emotions in these secretive sonnets. She makes herself open and more vulnerable than I would ever dare to be. But I am truly thankful for it. Sonnet 43 is probably one of the most widely known and revered poems ever. It is certainly at the top of the list in poems of love. I myself have had it quasi-memorized since elementary school when I first heard it. I am posting the whole thing because I don't think that this particular poem should ever be broken up. Each line is equally meaningful.

"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 everyday's
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.
I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;
I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.
I love thee with the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints,--I love with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life!--and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death."
(pg 532)

I italicized the two lines in the middle because I feel that they really hit hard. She is saying that she loves him as much as a person loves and fights for rights and freedom. And then that she loves him as a humble equal, pure and true. The last line as she knew is what takes the cake. She doesn't just say that she will love him after death, but God-willing, she will love him BETTER! This is a powerful little sonnet that holds a whole lot of meaning in it's 14 lines.

I find Aurora Leigh to be another masterpiece worth mentioning. It says so much about women, their abilities, and other's expectations of them.

"'Not the bay! I choose no bay
(The fates deny us if we are overbold),
Nor myrtle--which means chiefly love; and love
Is something awful which one dares not touch
So early o'mornings...
...Ah--there's my choice,--that ivy on the wall,
That headlong ivy! not a leaf will grow
But thinking of a wreath...
...I like such ivy, bold to leap a height
'Twas strong to climb; as good to grow on graves
As twist about a thyrsus; pretty too
(And that's not ill) when twisted round a comb.'"
(pgs 541-542)

I think that by denying the bay, she is showing humility. She passes up the myrtle because that is too much what is intended of a woman and she wants more than that. She even throws in some humor here with it being to early in the morning for such nauseating things. The lines I omitted reiterate her need for more as she passes up those that are fragrant without additional offerings. Finally, we see her choice is in strength. She is ready to take on anything and prove herself. I think that the trade of the thyrsus for the comb is her way of saying that she can attain this strength and be a lady.