Wednesday, August 28, 2013

Love you seek for, presupposes
   Summer heat and sunny glow,
Tell me, do you find moss-roses
   Budding, blooming in the snow?
Snow might kill the rose-tree's root~
Shake it quickly from your foot,
   Lest it harm you as you go.

From the ivy where it dapples
   A grey ruin, stone by stone,
Do you look for grapes or apples,
   Or for sad green leaves alone?
Pluck the leaves off, two or three~
Keep them for morality
   When you shall be safe and gone.

~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Sonnets From the Portuguese and Other Love Poems.


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