Borne On The Bier With White And Bristly Beard

Today was a pleasure in that I got to leave the house an hour later. The book I brought with me was a compilation of poems gathered from “the Foundations of the English Spirit” to poems written in our own time. As you know, you being me, I am deeply interested in the 19th century, its literature, philosophy, and history. The Romantics will play a main role in my thesis and therefor I am spending my time in between train rides acquainting myself with more writers I may be overlooking, where I stumbled apon a poem by Elizabeth Barrett Browning which made me think about Maria and our 4 year anniversary that we will celebrate this Saturday.

Sonnets from the Portuguese

If thou must love me, let it be for naught
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.


I love how her “look” is between her smile and way. To think that anything can change from one day to the next, as it has over the past four years, it becomes more the idea that holds us together if we continue to give it life like love, something shared outside of the physical, that has been our best preserve.