Read "I Love Thee for Thyself Alone" by Maria Lowell online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
Sonnet.
I love thee for thyself alone -- thyself alone; / For that great soul, whose breath most full and rare, / Shall to humanity a message bear, / Flooding their dreary waste with organ-tone:
The truth that in thine eyes holds starry throne
And coins the words that issue from thy lips; / Heroic courage, that meets no eclipse, / And humbler virtues on thy pathway strewn; --
These love I so, that if they swift uprise
To sure fulfilment in more perfect spheres, / Still will I listen underneath the skies
For thy new song, with seldom-dropping tears, / And midst my daily tasks of love will wait
The angel Death, guardian of Heaven's gate.