"Tomorrow is Saint Valentine's day,
All in the morning betime,
And I maid at your window,
To be your Valentine..."
-Ophelia in "Hamlet"
William Shakespeare
.jpg/640px-Dante_Gabriel_Rossetti_-_Hamlet_and_Ophelia_(1866).jpg)
Hamlet and Ophelia
(1866)
Ashmolean Museum Collection
Oxford, England
Dante Gabriel Rossetti
(1828-1882)
English painter and poet
Founder of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood
Aestheticism Art Movement
English painter and poet
Founder of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood
Aestheticism Art Movement
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 well 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 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 well 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.
"If Thou Must Love Me"
Sonnets from the Portuguese (14)
Elizabeth Barrett Browning
(1806-1861)
Victorian-era English poetess
Wife of English poet Robert Browning
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