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 mayst love on, through love’s eternity.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning was 40 years old when she married fellow Victorian poet Robert Browning. She had neither youth nor particular beauty to recommend her and was in frail health, but the two experienced a meeting of the minds through their correspondence. It all began when Robert wrote to express his admiration of her poems.
Elizabeth had many reservations about the match. She worried that a love, born so quickly, would quickly fade, that the age gap between them would be an impediment, and that perhaps it was merely pity that inspired Robert’s affections.
Elizabeth’s feelings of unworthiness were put to rest by the steadfastness of Robert’s love. She wrote in one of her letters, “I love your love too much. And that is the worst fault, my beloved, I ever can find in my love of you.” Their story went on to become one of the most famous romances in literary history.
Many of her initial concerns during her courtship with Robert are the same as those expressed in “Sonnet 14” from “Sonnets from the Portuguese.” Published in 1850, “Sonnets from the Portuguese” is a collection of 44 love sonnets. (The most famous of them begins “How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.”)
‘Sonnet 14’
In a sense, “Sonnet 14” is a lofty demand disguised as a romantic poem. After all, it’s the demand for for permanent affections, a statement that the speaker would rather have eternal love or none at all.Written as a Petrarchan or Italian sonnet (one octet and a sestet in the rhyme scheme ABBA ABBA CDCDCD), the poem is composed of four imperative statements: two negative commands and two positive commands.
The same command opens and closes the poem: love for love’s sake only. The use of the word “must” rather than “will” or “shall” denotes necessity: Not only is there the condition that the beloved’s love must be everlasting, but it must also stem from need, rather than desire. The second time the command appears, at the end of the poem, gives the reason for the command: “But love me for love’s sake, that evermore/ Thou mayst love on, through love’s eternity.”
Counterintuitively, the speaker requests that the object of love be love itself, not her. In this seemingly indirect way, the love is strengthened and reaches its highest form.
The first of the two negative commands begins as though to forbid the beloved from loving the superficialities (such as appearance) rather than the essence of a person. Browning wrote, “Do not say/ ‘I love her for her smile—her look—her way/ Of speaking gently.” These lines lead readers to believe that the poem will urge the listener to love her for the substance of her character instead.
However, the speaker forbids the beloved from loving her even for her mind:
“‘For a trick of thought/That falls in well with mine, and certes brought/ A sense of pleasant ease on such a day.’” All of these qualities, both substance and superficialities, can be changed, Elizabeth wrote, so love shouldn’t depend on them.
The second negative command forbids the beloved from loving for the sake of pity. Even if it stems from a selfless desire to give comfort to another, such a love too can change once the comfort is no longer needed. Neither superficial qualities nor one’s way of thinking compose the essence of a person because they can all be changed, and so Browning says love should not depend upon them.
A Genuine Love
The letters between the Brownings attest to the nature of love as rational and yet inexplicable. Quotes from their letters, such as Robert’s “I love you because I love you” or Elizabeth saying “There is no good reason for loving me, certainly, and my earnest desire (as I have said again and again) is, that there should be by profession no reason at all” echo the idea expressed in “Sonnet 14.” In loving a person well, we don’t love them for a set of particular attributes—their smile, appearance, or their speech. Neither do we love them as a composite of various qualities.
Authentic love aims at the essence of a person rather than the person as the sum of his or her parts. To love the whole of a person is to accept that they can change. But doing so requires a love of love itself. The eternal quality of this love, as Browning suggests, urges us to continually seek to know what it is about a person that distinguishes them from all others and makes them the particular one we love.
