Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s speaker watches a woman who treats love as a light, charming game. She laughs softly, counts her admirers, fans herself prettily, and never outright lies—but her heart remains uncommitted. The speaker notes how her silence and avoidance of vows reveal a lack of true love. The poem then shifts to a stern warning: unless you feel a complete, unwavering devotion—where no other person seems appealing, where your own beauty feels worthless without that one person’s praise, where you would swear “For life, for death!”—you should never call your feelings love. The mood grows intensely serious, contrasting the earlier flirtatious scenes with an almost sacred demand for emotional truth. It’s a passionate insistence that real love is far more than pleasant smiles and harmless glances; it’s a total, all-consuming commitment that defines your very sense of worth.
A Woman's Shortcomings — Summary
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, From 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 in-door singer. Bask tenderly beneath tender eyes; Glance lightly, on their removing; And join new vows to old perjuries - But dare not call it loving!
Unless you can think, when the 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 to 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!