~Elizabeth Barret Browing : I love this poem - Women are Amazing!!!

A Woman’s Shortcomings

She has laughed as softly as if she sighed,
She has counted six and over,
Of a purse well filled, and a heart well tried-
Oh each a worthy lover!
They “give her time”; for her soul must slip
Where the world has set the grooving:
She will lie to none with her fair red lip-
But love seeks truer loving.

She trembles her fan in a sweetness dumb,

As her thoughts were beyond recalling,

With a glance for one, and a glance for some,

For her eyelids rising and falling:

Speaks common words with a blushful air,

Hears bold words, unreproving;

But her silence says – what she never will swear-

And love seeks better loving.

Go, Lady lean to the night-guitar,

And drop a smile to the bringer

Then smile as sweetly, when he is far,

At the voice of an indoor singer.

Bask tenderly beneath tender eyes:

Glance lightly at their removing;

And join new vows to old perjuries-

But dare not call it loving.

Unless you can think, when song is done,

No other is soft in the rhythm;

Unless you can feel, when left by one,

That all men else go with him;

Unless you can know, when unpraised by his breath,

That your beauty itself wants proving;

Unless you can swear, “For life, For death!”-

Oh fear not call it loving!

Unless you can muse in a crowd all day,

On the absent face that fixed you;

Unless you can love as the Angels may,

With the breadth of heaven betwixt you:

Unless you can dream that his faith is fast,

Through behoving and unbehoving:

Unless you can die when the dream is past-

Oh never call it loving!

~Elizabeth Barret Browing

This poem reminds me of Memoirs of Geisha – I love that movie – I love this poem - Women are Amazing!!!