browning - love poems

You'll Love Me Yet

You'll love me yet! -- and I can tarry
Your love's protracted growing:
June rear'd that bunch of flowers you carry,
From seeds of April's sowing.

I plant a heartful now: some seed
At least is sure to strike,
And yield -- what you'll not pluck indeed,
Not love, but, may be, like.

You'll look at least on love's remains,
A grave's one violet:
Your look? -- that pays a thousand pains.
What's death? You'll love me yet!

-- Robert Browning



Sonnets from the Portuguese - No. 14

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 may'st love on, through love's eternity.

-- Elizabeth Barrett Browning