If Thou Must Love Me, by the English poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning, is the 14th of 44 sonnets collected under the title of Sonnets from the Portuguese (1850). Although the title suggests that the poems are translations, the sonnets are in fact love poems. They detail the romance between the writer and her husband, the poet Robert Browning. “The Portuguese” was the couple’s secret nickname for Elizabeth.
The progress of Sonnets from the Portuguese charts the development of the poet’s love, from hesitation and doubt to happy affirmation. In Sonnet 14, she asks to be loved, not for fleeting qualities that might change with the years, but “for love’s sake only.”
Loading the player...If Thou Must Love Me by E. B. Browning
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 mayst love on, through love’s eternity.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning did not originally intend her sonnets to be published. As a result, her words have directness and honesty. She addresses the poems simply to her “Beloved.” Browning also rejects the more traditional poetic ideal of womanhood when she asks not to be exalted for her physical qualities, or for her gentle ways, or for her weakness. Instead, her notion of a more pure, abstract devotion suggests an equality between men and women in love.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning wrote a great number of other poetical and prose works, including several on historical and political themes. But she is best remembered for her Sonnets from the Portuguese. Today they are among the most popular love poems in the English language.
For more information on Browning, see Browning, Elizabeth Barrett. See also Browning, Robert; English literature (Later Victorian literature).
