She has laughed as softly as if she sighed,
She has counted six and over,
Of a purse well filled, and a heart well tried;
Oh each a worthy lover!
They give her time; for her soul must slip
Where the world has set the grooving:
She will lie to none with her fair red lip;
But love seeks truer loving.

She trembles her fan in a sweetness dumb,
As her thoughts were beyond recalling,
With a glance for one, and a glance for some,
For her eyelids rising and falling;
Speaks common words with a blushful air,
Hears bold words, unreproving;
But her silence says-what she never will swear—
And love seeks better loving.

Go, lady, lean to the night—grutar,
And drop a smile to the bringer,
Then smile as sweetly, when he is far,
At the voice of an indoor singer.
Bask tenderly beneath tender eyes;
Glance lightly on their removing;
And join new vows to old perjuries
But dare not call it loving.

No other is soft in the rhythm;
Unless you can feel, when left by one,
That all men else go with him;
Unless you can know, when unpraised by his breath,
That your beauty itself wants proving;
Unless you can swear, "For life, for death!"
Oh fear to call it loving!

Unless you can muse in a crowd all day,
On the absent face that fixed you;
Unless you can love, as the angels may,
With the breadth of heaven betwixt you;
Unless you can dream that his faith is fast,
Through behoving and unbehoving;
Unless you can die when the dream is past—
Oh never call it loving!

- Elizabeth Barrett Browning

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