Poetry Friday - Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Ok, so she's kind of old fashioned. And ok, so Robert Browning is more "interesting." But my grandmother bought me Sonnets from the Portuguese and Other Love Poems when I was in high school, and I really do love that book. So here's some EBB for your reading pleasure.

Sonnet XXXV

If I leave all for thee, wilt thou exchange
And be all to me? Shall I never miss
Home-talk and blessing and the common kiss
That comes to each in turn, nor count it strange,
When I look up to drop on a new range
Of walls and floors, another home than this?
Nay, wilt thou fill that place by me which is
Filled by dead eyes too tender to know change?
That's hardest. If to conquer love, has tried,
To conquer grief, tries more, as all things prove;
For grief indeed is love and grief beside.
Alas, I have grieved so I am hard to love.
Yet love me - wilt thou? Open thine heart wide,
And fold within the wet wings of thy dove.