Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806–1861) is perhaps the greatest woman to have uttered poetry, in the literatures of all the nations, after sweet Sappho. Her fame today rests upon her small collection of poems, "Songs from the Portuguese," into which she poured feelings and emotions so purely personal that she was driven to pretend she was merely translating from a foreign tongue, not setting the beatings of her heart directly upon paper.
This song is one of them:
If you cannot help but love me, then let your love be for nothing except for love's sake alone. Do not say: "I love her for her smile, or her look, or her way of gentle speech; for a current of thought that falls in harmony with my own, and that rightly brought a sense of pleasant ease on such a day." For these things in themselves, my beloved, may change, or be changed in your eyes, and so the love they gave birth to dies with their passing! Nor love me out of your own dear pity, wiping the tears from my cheek: for one who has long enjoyed your comfort may forget to weep — and so lose your love! But love me for love's sake, that you may go on loving me always, so long as love has an eternity.
By the poetess Nazik al-Malaika