Portraits by Thomas Buchanan Read (March 12, 1822 - May 11, 1872) of Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Robert Browning

According to Shadow Poetry, a fable is a poetic story composed in verse or prose with a moral summed up at the end. Mine is written in the spirit of Elizabeth Barrett Browning's titled, "A Man's Requirements."

An excerpt from: https://www.poetrysoup.com/elizabeth_barrett_browning/biography
The celebrated Romantic poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning was one of the most influential figures within English poetry during the Victorian age. She was born in 1806, in County Durham, as the first of twelve children. She died in Italy, in 1861, following a prolonged illness.

She continues to be admired for deeply spiritual works like verse novel Aurora Leigh and love lyric compilation Sonnets from the Portuguese. She has been cited as an influence by writers as diverse as Emily Dickinson, Edgar Allen Poe, and Lillian Whiting. In 1845, Poe dedicated his anthology The Raven and Other Poems to her and dubbed her "the noblest of her sex."

(To read the full story please see the link above)

In 1844, she published another collection called Poems and it made her a star in England. It was shortly after this that she first met her future husband, Robert Browning. The inseparable pair took to dating in secret, because it was judged best that her father not know about the romance; their subsequent marriage was conducted clandestinely.

Unfortunately, her father did find out and excluded her from his will. Plus, her brothers turned their backs on her, labeling Browning a "bad influence." The newly married couple relocated to Italy, and there Elizabeth gave birth to a son, their only child. She would never again return to England.

In the years leading up to her death, in 1861, she suffered greatly with degenerative lung disease and eventually died, at the age of 55, in Florence. Robert was close by and claimed that her final word was, simply, "beautiful." She was buried in the Protest English Cemetery of Florence. He gave the go ahead for a posthumous poetry collection, called Last Poems, to be released shortly after her passing.

A Man's Requirements

By Elizabeth Barrett Browning

I

Love me Sweet, with all thou art,
Feeling, thinking, seeing;
Love me in the lightest part,
Love me in full being.


II

Love me with thine open youth
In its frank surrender;
With the vowing of thy mouth,
With its silence tender.


III

Love me with thine azure eyes,
Made for earnest grantings;
Taking colour from the skies,
Can Heaven's truth be wanting?

IV

Love me with their lids, that fall
Snow-like at first meeting;
Love me with thine heart, that all
Neighbours then see beating.


V

Love me with thine hand stretched out
Freely -- open-minded:
Love me with thy loitering foot, --
Hearing one behind it.


VI

Love me with thy voice, that turns
Sudden faint above me;
Love me with thy blush that burns
When I murmur 'Love me!'

VII

Love me with thy thinking soul,
Break it to love-sighing;
Love me with thy thoughts that roll
On through living -- dying.


VIII

Love me in thy gorgeous airs,
When the world has crowned thee;
Love me, kneeling at thy prayers,
With the angels round thee.


IX

Love me pure, as muses do,
Up the woodlands shady:
Love me gaily, fast and true,
As a winsome lady.


X

Through all hopes that keep us brave,
Farther off or nigher,
Love me for the house and grave,
And for something higher.


XI

Thus, if thou wilt prove me, Dear,
Woman's love no fable,
I will love thee -- half a year --
As a man is able.

You need to login or register to write reviews. It's quick! We only ask four questions to new members.