Love
Poetry Home
If Thou Must Love
Me,
Let It Be For Nought
Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806-1861)
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 therby!
But love
me for love's sake, that evermore
Thou mayst
love on, through love's eternity.
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