Home > Work > Aurora Leigh and Other Poems
1 " O Life,How oft we throw it off and think, — 'Enough,Enough of life in so much! — here's a causeFor rupture; — herein we must break with Life,Or be ourselves unworthy; here we are wronged,Maimed, spoiled for aspiration: farewell Life!'— And so, as froward babes, we hide our eyesAnd think all ended. — Then, Life calls to usIn some transformed, apocryphal, new voice,Above us, or below us, or around . .Perhaps we name it Nature's voice, or Love's,Tricking ourselves, because we are more ashamedTo own our compensations than our griefs:Still, Life's voice! — still, we make our peace with Life. "
― Elizabeth Barrett Browning , Aurora Leigh and Other Poems
2 " A harmless life, she called a virtuous life,A quiet life, which was not life at all . . . "
3 " The chances are that, being a woman, young,And pure, with such a pair of large, calm eyes,You write as well...and ill...upon the whole,As other women. If as well, what then?If even a little better,..still, what then?We want the Best in art now, or no art." (L144-149) "
4 " We get no goodBy being ungenerous, even to a bookAnd calculating profits - so much helpBy so much rending. It is rather when We gloriously forget ourselves, and plungeSoul-forward, headlong, into a book's profound,Impassioned for its beauty and salt of truth - 'Tis then we get the right good from a book. "
