Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Abele

Six abeles i' the churchyard grow.

Absolute

The peddler stopped, and tapped her on the head, With absolute forefinger, brown and ringed.

Acceptancy

Here's a proof of gift, But here's no proof, sir, of acceptancy.

Aristocrat

A born aristocrat, bred radical.

Astonied

And I astonied fell and could not pray.

Carven

A screen of carven ivory.

Contrarious

She flew contrarious in the face of God.

Cove

Now, look to it, coves, that all the beef and drink Be not filched from us.

Crinkle

The flames through all the casements pushing forth, Like red-not devils crinkled into snakes.

And all the rooms Were full of crinkling silks.

Deductible

Not one found honestly deductible From any use that pleased him.

Develop

Nor poets enough to understand That life develops from within.

Dimplement

The ground's most gentle dimplement.

Disloyal

Without a thought disloyal.

Distraught

To doubt betwixt our senses and our souls Which are the most distraught and full of pain.

Drowse

But smiled on in a drowse of ecstasy.

Elegiac

Elegiac griefs, and songs of love.

Empery

Struggling for my woman's empery.

Etern

Built up to eterne significance.

Exasperate

Like swallows which the exasperate dying year Sets spinning.

Eyne

With such a plaintive gaze their eyne Are fastened upwardly on mine.

Figment

Social figments, feints, and formalism.

Fleshhood

Thou, who hast thyself Endured this fleshhood.

Fling

I flung closer to his breast, As sword that, after battle, flings to sheath.

Forego

For which the very mother's face forewent The mother's special patience.

Fossilize

Ten layers of birthdays on a woman's head Are apt to fossilize her girlish mirth.

Front

Like any plain Miss Smith's, who wears s front.

Greaten

My blue eyes greatening in the looking-glass.

Gyre

Still expanding and ascending gyres.

Hoggery

Crime and shame And all their hoggery.

Hurtle

The earthquake sound Hurtling 'death the solid ground.

Hyaline

Our blood runs amazed 'neath the calm hyaline.

Idless

And an idlesse all the day Beside a wandering stream.

Idyl

Wordsworth's solemn-thoughted idyl.

Ignore

Ignoring Italy under our feet, And seeing things before, behind.

Impearl

With morning dews impearled.

Incisive

And her incisive smile accrediting That treason of false witness in my blush.

Inflatus

The divine breath that blows the nostrils out To ineffable inflatus.

Innermostly

His ebon cross worn innermostly.

Inscient

Gaze on, with inscient vision, toward the sun.

Insensuous

That intermediate door Betwixt the different planes of sensuous form And form insensuous.

Issue

As much at issue with the summer day As if you brought a candle out of doors.

Kerchief

Her black hair strained away To a scarlet kerchief caught beneath her chin.

Masterful

His masterful, pale face.

Metaphysics

Whether, after all, A larger metaphysics might not help Our physics.

Misalliance

A Leigh had made a misalliance, and blushed A Howard should know it.

Misprize

I do not blame them, madam, nor misprize.

Mister

To call your name, inquire your where, Or what you think of Mister Some-one's book, Or Mister Other's marriage or decease.

Moil

The moil of death upon them.

Mythic

The mythic turf where danced the nymphs.

Od

That od force of German Reichenbach Which still, from female finger tips, burnt blue.

Oubliette

Sudden in the sun An oubliette winks. Where is he? Gone.

Pale

Apt to pale at a trodden worm.

Panomphean

We want no half gods, panomphean Joves.

Persist

That face persists. It floats up; it turns over in my mind.

Puissant

And worldlings in it are less merciful, And more puissant.

Pyramidal

The mystic obelisks stand up Triangular, pyramidal.

Quotha

To affront the blessed hillside drabs and thieves With mended morals, quotha, -- fine new lives !

Rhythmic

Day and night I worked my rhythmic thought.

Romaunt

O, hearken, loving hearts and bold, Unto my wild romaunt.

Rough

Contemplating the people in the rough.

Speciality

We 'll say, instead, the inconsequent creature man, - For that'a his speciality.

Spherical

Though the stars were suns, and overburned Their spheric limitations.

Spontaneity

Romney Leigh, who lives by diagrams, And crosses not the spontaneities Of all his individual, personal life With formal universals.

Stertorous

Burning, stertorous breath that hurt her cheek.

Suspire

Fireflies that suspire In short, soft lapses of transported flame.

Tern

She'd win a tern in Thursday's lottery.

Thyrsus

A good to grow on graves As twist about a thyrsus.

Trine

A single trine of brazen tortoises.

Unfellow

Death quite unfellows us.

Upstroke

Some upstroke of an Alpha and Omega.

Wean

I, being but a yearling wean.

Ween

Though never a dream the roses sent Of science or love's compliment, I ween they smelt as sweet.