Love's Eternity

If thou must love me... (Sonnet 14)

  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, Belovèd, 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 mayst love on, through love's eternity.

The forty-four poems that became Sonnets from the Portuguese were written by the future Mrs. Browning between 1845 and 1846 while she was being courted by Robert Browning.  

When you meet your beloved, the time period of courtship is one of the most romantic periods. You can feel her powerful connection to Robert. This amorous sonnet directs her lover to love her "for love's sake only."

While Change in our physical appearance is inevitable,  love lives on in an eternal embrace.