A Woman’s Answer

Adelaide Anne Procter (1825–1864)

I WILL not let you say a woman’s part

Must be to give exclusive love alone;

Dearest, although I love you so, my heart

Answers a thousand claims besides your own.

I love,—what do I not love? Earth and air

Find space within my heart, and myriad things

You would not deign to heed are cherished there,

And vibrate on its very inmost strings.

I love the summer, with her ebb and flow

Of light and warmth and music, that have nursed

Her tender buds to blossoms … and you know

It was in the summer that I saw you first.

I love the winter dearly too,… but then

I owe it so much; on a winter’s day,

Bleak, cold, and stormy, you returned again

When you had been those weary months away.

I love the stars like friends; so many nights

I gazed at them, when you were far from me,

Till I grew blind with tears … those far-off lights

Could watch you, whom I longed in vain to see.

I love the flowers; happy hours lie

Shut up within their petals close and fast:

You have forgotten, dear; but they and I

Keep every fragment of the golden Past.

I love, too, to be loved; all loving praise

Seems like a crown upon my life,—to make

It better worth the giving, and to raise

Still nearer to your own the heart you take.

I love all good and noble souls;—I heard

One speak of you but lately, and for days,

Only to think of it, my soul was stirred

In tender memory of such generous praise.

I love all those who love you, all who owe

Comfort to you; and I can find regret

Even for those poorer hearts who once could know,

And once could love you, and can now forget.

Well, is my heart so narrow,—I, who spare

Love for all these? Do I not even hold

My favorite books in special tender care,

And prize them as a miser does his gold?

The poets that you used to read to me

While summer twilights faded in the sky;

But most of all I think Aurora Leigh,

Because—because—do you remember why?

Will you be jealous? Did you guess before

I loved so many things?—Still you the best:—

Dearest, remember that I love you more,

O, more a thousand times, than all the rest!

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