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| I WILL not let you say a woman’s part | |
| Must be to give exclusive love alone; | |
| Dearest, although I love you so, my heart | |
| Answers a thousand claims besides your own. | |
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| I love,—what do I not love? Earth and air | 5 |
| Find space within my heart, and myriad things | |
| You would not deign to heed are cherished there, | |
| And vibrate on its very inmost strings. | |
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| I love the summer, with her ebb and flow | |
| Of light and warmth and music, that have nursed | 10 |
| Her tender buds to blossoms … and you know | |
| It was in the summer that I saw you first. | |
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| I love the winter dearly too,… but then | |
| I owe it so much; on a winter’s day, | |
| Bleak, cold, and stormy, you returned again | 15 |
| When you had been those weary months away. | |
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| I love the stars like friends; so many nights | |
| I gazed at them, when you were far from me, | |
| Till I grew blind with tears … those far-off lights | |
| Could watch you, whom I longed in vain to see. | 20 |
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| I love the flowers; happy hours lie | |
| Shut up within their petals close and fast: | |
| You have forgotten, dear; but they and I | |
| Keep every fragment of the golden Past. | |
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| I love, too, to be loved; all loving praise | 25 |
| Seems like a crown upon my life,—to make | |
| It better worth the giving, and to raise | |
| Still nearer to your own the heart you take. | |
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| I love all good and noble souls;—I heard | |
| One speak of you but lately, and for days, | 30 |
| Only to think of it, my soul was stirred | |
| In tender memory of such generous praise. | |
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| I love all those who love you, all who owe | |
| Comfort to you; and I can find regret | |
| Even for those poorer hearts who once could know, | 35 |
| And once could love you, and can now forget. | |
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| Well, is my heart so narrow,—I, who spare | |
| Love for all these? Do I not even hold | |
| My favorite books in special tender care, | |
| And prize them as a miser does his gold? | 40 |
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| The poets that you used to read to me | |
| While summer twilights faded in the sky; | |
| But most of all I think Aurora Leigh, | |
| Because—because—do you remember why? | |
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| Will you be jealous? Did you guess before | 45 |
| I loved so many things?—Still you the best:— | |
| Dearest, remember that I love you more, | |
| O, more a thousand times, than all the rest! | |
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