How Do I Love Thee? Let Me

O Rose, Who Dares To Name Thee? No Longer Roseate Now, Nor Soft, Nor Sweet, But Pale, And Hard, And Dry, As Stubblewheat, Kept Seven Years In A Drawer, Thy Titles Shame Thee.

At Painful Times, When Composition Is Impossible And Reading Not Enough, Grammars And Dictionaries Are Excellent For Distraction.

Thank God For Grace, Ye Who Weep Only! If, As Some Have Done, Ye Grope Tear-blinded In A Desert Place And Touch But Tombs,--look Up! Those Tears Will Run Soon In Long Rivers Down The Lifted Face, And Leave The Vision Clear For Stars And Sun.

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 Dropt 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.

And Chaucer, With His Infantine Familiar Clasp Of Things Divine.