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  (courtesy Rothe Technologies, Inc.)

Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806-1861):

She was not as pretty as women I know,

And yet all your best made of sunshine and snow

Drop to shade, melt to nought in the long-trodden ways,

While she's still remembered on warm and cold days--

    My Kate.

Her air had a meaning, her movements a grace;

You turned from the fairest to gaze on her face;

And when you had once seen her forehead and mouth,

You saw as distinctly her soul and her truth--

    My Kate.

Such a blue inner light from her eyelids outbroke,

You looked at her silence and fancied she spoke;

When she did, so peculiar yet soft was the tone,

Though the loudest spoke also, you heard her alone--

    My Kate.

I doubt if she said to you much that could act

As a thought or suggestion; she did not attract

In the sense of the brilliant or wise; I infer

'Twas her thinking of others made you think of her--

    My Kate.

She never found fault with you, never implied

Your wrong by her right; and yet men at her side

Grew nobler, girls purer, as through the whole town

The children were gladder that pulled at her gown--

    My Kate

None knelt at her feet confessed lovers in thrall;

They knelt more to God than they used--that was all;

If you praised her as charming, some asked what you meant,

But the charm of her presence was felt when she went--

    My Kate.

The weak and the gentle, the ribald and rude,

She took as she found them, and did them all good;

It always was so with her--see what you have!

She has made the grass greener even here with her grave--

    My Kate.

My dear one! -- when thou wast alive with the rest,

I held thee the sweetest and loved thee the best:

And now thou art dead, shall I not take thy part

As thy smiles used to do for thyself, my sweet Heart --

    My Kate.

Harriet Waters Preston, The Complete Poetical Works of

Mrs. Browning (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin, 1900) 430-431.