If Thou Must Love Me

For more information about this song, please visit the following page: Three Sonnets After the Portuguese.

The audio recording provided in the audio playlist to the right is used with the permission of the composer and features The Corelli Trio (contralto Judit Rajk, violinist Gabor Csonka & bassoonist Geza Hargitai) on Arizona University Recordings.

Date: 2006Composer: Allen BringsText: Elizabeth Barrett BrowningSong Collection: Three Sonnets after the Portuguese

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Text

by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

If thou must love me, let it be for nought
Except for love’s sake only. Do not say
“I love her for her smile … her look … her way
Of speaking gently, … for a trick of thought
That falls in well with mine, and certes brought
A sense of pleasant ease on such a day”
For these things in themselves, Beloved, may
Be changed, or change for thee,– and love, so wrought,
May be unwrought so. Neither love me for
Thine own dear pity’s wiping my cheeks dry,
A creature might forget to weep, who bore
Thy comfort long, and lose thy love thereby!
But love me for love’s sake, that evermore
Thou may’st love on, through love’s eternity.

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