How Do I Love Thee?

by Nancy Moser

  II But only three in all God’s universe

  III Unlike are we, unlike, O princely Heart!

  IV Thou hast thy calling to some palace-floor

  V I lift my heavy heart up solemnly

  VI Go from me. Yet I feel that I shall stand

  VII The face of all the world is changed, I think

  VIII What can I give thee back, O liberal

  IX Can it be right to give what I can give?

  X Yet, love, mere love, is beautiful indeed

  XI And therefore if to love can be desert

  XII Indeed this very love which is my boast

  XIII And wilt thou have me fashion into speech

  XIV If thou must love me, let it be for nought

  XV Accuse me not, beseech thee, that I wear

  XVI And yet, because thou overcomest so

  XVII My poet, thou canst touch on all the notes

  XVIII I never gave a lock of hair away

  XIX The soul’s Rialto hath its merchandize

  XX Belovèd, my belovèd, when I think

  XXI Say over again, and yet once over again

  XXII When our two souls stand up erect and strong

  XXIII Is it indeed so? If I lay here dead

  XXIV Let the world’s sharpness like a clasping knife

  XXV A heavy heart, Belovèd, have I borne

  XXVI I lived with visions for my company

  XXVII My own Belovèd, who hast lifted me

  XXVIII My letters! all dead paper, mute and white!

  XXIX I think of thee!— my thoughts do twine and bud

  XXX I see thine image through my tears to-night

  XXXI Thou comest! all is said without a word

  XXXII The first time that the sun rose on thine oath

  XXXIII Yes, call me by my pet-name! let me hear

  XXXIV With the same heart, I said, I’ll answer thee

  XXXV If I leave all for thee, wilt thou exchange

  XXXVI When we met first and loved, I did not build

  XXXVII Pardon, oh, pardon, that my soul should make

  XXXVIII First time he kissed me, he but only kissed

  XXXIX Because thou hast the power and own’st the grace

  XL Oh, yes! they love through all this world of ours!

  XLI I thank all who have loved me in their hearts

  XLII My future will not copy fair my past

  XLIII How do I love thee? Let me count the ways

  XLIV Belovèd, thou hast brought me many flowers

  I

  I thought once how Theocritus had sung

  Of the sweet years, the dear and wished-for years,

  Who each one in a gracious hand appears

  To bear a gift for mortals, old or young:

  And, as I mused it in his antique tongue,

  I saw, in gradual vision through my tears,

  The sweet, sad years, the melancholy years,

  Those of my own life, who by turns had flung

  A shadow across me. Straightway I was ’ware,

  So weeping, how a mystic Shape did move

  Behind me, and drew me backward by the hair;

  And a voice said in mastery, while I strove,—

  “Guess now who holds thee!”—“Death,” I said, But, there,

  The silver answer rang, “Not Death, but Love.”

  II

  But only three in all God’s universe

  Have heard this word thou hast said,—Himself, beside

  Thee speaking, and me listening! and replied

  One of us . . . that was God, . . . and laid the curse

  So darkly on my eyelids, as to amerce

  My sight from seeing thee,—that if I had died,

  The death-weights, placed there, would have signified

  Less absolute exclusion. “Nay” is worse

  From God than from all others, O my friend!

  Men could not part us with their worldly jars,

  Nor the seas change us, nor the tempests bend;

  Our hands would touch for all the mountain-bars:

  And, heaven being rolled between us at the end,

  We should but vow the faster for the stars.

  III

  Unlike are we, unlike, O princely Heart!

  Unlike our uses and our destinies.

  Our ministering two angels look surprise

  On one another, as they strike athwart

  Their wings in passing. Thou, bethink thee, art

  A guest for queens to social pageantries,

  With gages from a hundred brighter eyes

  Than tears even can make mine, to play thy part

  Of chief musician. What hast thou to do

  With looking from the lattice-lights at me,

  A poor, tired, wandering singer, singing through

  The dark, and leaning up a cypress tree?

  The chrism is on thine head,—on mine, the dew,—

  And Death must dig the level where these agree.

  IV

  Thou hast thy calling to some palace-floor,

  Most gracious singer of high poems! where

  The dancers will break footing, from the care

  Of watching up thy pregnant lips for more.

  And dost thou lift this house’s latch too poor

  For hand of thine? and canst thou think and bear

  To let thy music drop here unaware

  In folds of golden fulness at my door?

  Look up and see the casement broken in,

  The bats and owlets builders in the roof!

  My cricket chirps against thy mandolin.

  Hush, call no echo up in further proof

  Of desolation! there’s a voice within

  That weeps . . . as thou must sing . . . alone, aloof.

  V

  I lift my heavy heart up solemnly,

  As once Electra her sepulchral urn,

  And, looking in thine eyes, I over-turn

  The ashes at thy feet. Behold and see

  What a great heap of grief lay hid in me,

  And how the red wild sparkles dimly burn

  Through the ashen greyness. If thy foot in scorn

  Could tread them out to darkness utterly,

  It might be well perhaps. But if instead

  Thou wait beside me for the wind to blow

  The grey dust up, . . . those laurels on thine head,

  O my Belovèd, will not shield thee so,

  That none of all the fires shall scorch and shred

  The hair beneath. Stand further off then! go!

  VI

  Go from me. Yet I feel that I shall stand

  Henceforward in thy shadow. Nevermore

  Alone upon the threshold of my door

  Of individual life, I shall command

  The uses of my soul, nor lift my hand

  Serenely in the sunshine as before,

  Without the sense of that which I forbore—

  Thy touch upon the palm. The widest land

  Doom takes to part us, leaves thy heart in mine

  With pulses that beat double. What I do

  And what I dream include thee, as the wine

  Must taste of its own grapes. And when I sue

  God for myself, He hears that name of thine,

  And sees within my eyes the tears of two.

  VII

  The face of all the world is changed, I think,

  Since first I heard the footsteps of thy soul

  Move still, oh, still, beside me, as they stole

  Betwixt me and the dreadful outer brink

  Of obvious death, where I, who thought to sink,

  Was caught up into love, and taught the whole

  Of life in a new rhythm. The cup of dole

  God gave for baptism, I am fain to drink,

  And praise its sweetness, Sweet, with thee anear.

  The names of country, heaven, are changed away

  For where thou art or shalt be, there or here;

  And this . . . thi
s lute and song . . . loved yesterday,

  (The singing angels know) are only dear

  Because thy name moves right in what they say.

  VIII

  What can I give thee back, O liberal

  And princely giver, who hast brought the gold

  And purple of thine heart, unstained, untold,

  And laid them on the outside of the wall

  For such as I to take or leave withal,

  In unexpected largesse? am I cold,

  Ungrateful, that for these most manifold

  High gifts, I render nothing back at all?

  Not so; not cold,—but very poor instead.

  Ask God who knows. For frequent tears have run

  The colours from my life, and left so dead

  And pale a stuff, it were not fitly done

  To give the same as pillow to thy head.

  Go farther! let it serve to trample on.

  IX

  Can it be right to give what I can give?

  To let thee sit beneath the fall of tears

  As salt as mine, and hear the sighing years

  Re-sighing on my lips renunciative

  Through those infrequent smiles which fail to live

  For all thy adjurations? O my fears,

  That this can scarce be right! We are not peers

  So to be lovers; and I own, and grieve,

  That givers of such gifts as mine are, must

  Be counted with the ungenerous. Out, alas!

  I will not soil thy purple with my dust,

  Nor breathe my poison on thy Venice-glass,

  Nor give thee any love—which were unjust.

  Beloved, I only love thee! let it pass.

  X

  Yet, love, mere love, is beautiful indeed

  And worthy of acceptation. Fire is bright,

  Let temple burn, or flax; an equal light

  Leaps in the flame from cedar-plank or weed:

  And love is fire. And when I say at need

  I love thee . . . mark! . . . I love thee—in thy sight

  I stand transfigured, glorified aright,

  With conscience of the new rays that proceed

  Out of my face toward thine. There’s nothing low

  In love, when love the lowest: meanest creatures

  Who love God, God accepts while loving so.

  And what I feel, across the inferior features

  Of what I am, doth flash itself, and show

  How that great work of Love enhances Nature’s.

  XI

  And therefore if to love can be desert,

  I am not all unworthy. Cheeks as pale

  As these you see, and trembling knees that fail

  To bear the burden of a heavy heart,—

  This weary minstrel-life that once was girt

  To climb Aornus, and can scarce avail

  To pipe now ’gainst the valley nightingale

  A melancholy music,—why advert

  To these things? O Belovèd, it is plain

  I am not of thy worth nor for thy place!

  And yet, because I love thee, I obtain

  From that same love this vindicating grace

  To live on still in love, and yet in vain,—

  To bless thee, yet renounce thee to thy face.

  XII

  Indeed this very love which is my boast,

  And which, when rising up from breast to brow,

  Doth crown me with a ruby large enow

  To draw men’s eyes and prove the inner cost,—

  This love even, all my worth, to the uttermost,

  I should not love withal, unless that thou

  Hadst set me an example, shown me how,

  When first thine earnest eyes with mine were crossed,

  And love called love. And thus, I cannot speak

  Of love even, as a good thing of my own:

  Thy soul hath snatched up mine all faint and weak,

  And placed it by thee on a golden throne,—

  And that I love (O soul, we must be meek!)

  Is by thee only, whom I love alone.

  XIII

  And wilt thou have me fashion into speech

  The love I bear thee, finding words enough,

  And hold the torch out, while the winds are rough,

  Between our faces, to cast light on each?—

  I drop it at thy feet. I cannot teach

  My hand to hold my spirits so far off

  From myself—me—that I should bring thee proof

  In words, of love hid in me out of reach.

  Nay, let the silence of my womanhood

  Commend my woman-love to thy belief,—

  Seeing that I stand unwon, however wooed,

  And rend the garment of my life, in brief,

  By a most dauntless, voiceless fortitude,

  Lest one touch of this heart convey its grief.

  XIV

  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, Belovèd, 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.

  XV

  Accuse me not, beseech thee, that I wear

  Too calm and sad a face in front of thine;

  For we two look two ways, and cannot shine

  With the same sunlight on our brow and hair.

  On me thou lookest with no doubting care,

  As on a bee shut in a crystalline;

  Since sorrow hath shut me safe in love’s divine,

  And to spread wing and fly in the outer air

  Were most impossible failure, if I strove

  To fail so. But I look on thee—on thee—

  Beholding, besides love, the end of love,

  Hearing oblivion beyond memory;

  As one who sits and gazes from above,

  Over the rivers to the bitter sea.

  XVI

  And yet, because thou overcomest so,

  Because thou art more noble and like a king,

  Thou canst prevail against my fears and fling

  Thy purple round me, till my heart shall grow

  Too close against thine heart henceforth to know

  How it shook when alone. Why, conquering

  May prove as lordly and complete a thing

  In lifting upward, as in crushing low!

  And as a vanquished soldier yields his sword

  To one who lifts him from the bloody earth,

  Even so, Belovèd, I at last record,

  Here ends my strife. If thou invite me forth,

  I rise above abasement at the word.

  Make thy love larger to enlarge my worth!

  XVII

  My poet, thou canst touch on all the notes

  God set between His After and Before,

  And strike up and strike off the general roar

  Of the rushing worlds a melody that floats

  In a serene air purely. Antidotes

  Of medicated music, answering for

  Mankind’s forlornest uses, thou canst pour

  From thence into their ears. God’s will devotes

  Thine to such ends, and mine to wait on thine.

  How, Dearest, wilt thou have me for most use?

  A hope, to sing by gladly? or a fine

  Sad memory, with thy songs to interfuse?

  A shade, in which to sing—of pal
m or pine?

  A grave, on which to rest from singing? Choose.

  XVIII

  I never gave a lock of hair away

  To a man, Dearest, except this to thee,

  Which now upon my fingers thoughtfully

  I ring out to the full brown length and say

  “Take it.” My day of youth went yesterday;

  My hair no longer bounds to my foot’s glee,

  Nor plant I it from rose- or myrtle-tree,

  As girls do, any more: it only may

  Now shade on two pale cheeks the mark of tears,

  Taught drooping from the head that hangs aside

  Through sorrow’s trick. I thought the funeral-shears

  Would take this first, but Love is justified,—

  Take it thou,-finding pure, from all those years,

  The kiss my mother left here when she died.

  XIX

  The soul’s Rialto hath its merchandize;

  I barter curl for curl upon that mart,

  And from my poet’s forehead to my heart

  Receive this lock which outweighs argosies,—

  As purply black, as erst to Pindar’s eyes

  The dim purpureal tresses gloomed athwart

  The nine white Muse-brows. For this counterpart, . . .

  The bay crown’s shade, Belovèd, I surmise,

  Still lingers on thy curl, it is so black!

  Thus, with a fillet of smooth-kissing breath,

  I tie the shadows safe from gliding back,

  And lay the gift where nothing hindereth;

  Here on my heart, as on thy brow, to lack

  No natural heat till mine grows cold in death.

  XX

  Belovèd, my Belovèd, when I think

  That thou wast in the world a year ago,

  What time I sat alone here in the snow

  And saw no footprint, heard the silence sink

  No moment at thy voice, but, link by link,

  Went counting all my chains as if that so

  They never could fall off at any blow

  Struck by thy possible hand,—why, thus I drink

  Of life’s great cup of wonder! Wonderful,

  Never to feel thee thrill the day or night

  With personal act or speech,—nor ever cull

  Some prescience of thee with the blossoms white

  Thou sawest growing! Atheists are as dull,