Smiles, tears, of all my life! - and, if God choose, I shall but

In the immortal words of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, the poetess of love and spirit, there flows a truth that transcends both time and flesh: “Smiles, tears, of all my life!—and, if God choose, I shall but love thee better after death.” These words, drawn from her Sonnets from the Portuguese, are not mere verses of romance—they are a sacred vow, a declaration that love, when pure and eternal, cannot be undone by death. Here speaks a soul who has seen both joy and sorrow, and who proclaims that neither can diminish the divine flame of affection within her heart. It is a cry of devotion strong enough to defy the grave.

The origin of this line lies within one of the most tender and luminous love stories ever written—the union of Elizabeth Barrett and Robert Browning. Elizabeth, frail in health and confined by the tyranny of an overbearing father, found in Robert not only a lover but a liberator. Their letters, filled with reverence and trembling affection, were hymns of two spirits recognizing one another across distance and despair. When she wrote these lines, Elizabeth was not a dreamer untouched by suffering—she was a woman who had tasted pain, isolation, and loss. Her love was therefore not born of fantasy, but of faith—faith that true affection is rooted in the soul, not in circumstance.

The phrase “Smiles, tears, of all my life!” gathers the full range of human experience—the sweetness of joy, the bitterness of sorrow—into a single offering. Elizabeth does not love in spite of life’s trials; she loves through them. The tears do not diminish her love, they deepen it. The smiles do not make it naïve, they make it radiant. To love in this way is to understand that every emotion, every moment, every breath contributes to the fullness of the bond between two souls. And when she writes, “if God choose, I shall but love thee better after death,” she reaches beyond the mortal to the eternal, affirming that death, which ends all worldly things, cannot end love that is sanctified by the divine.

Such a sentiment echoes through the ancient traditions of humankind. The Egyptians buried lovers side by side, believing that they would awaken together in the next life. In Greek myth, Orpheus descended into the underworld to reclaim his beloved Eurydice, risking his very soul to prove that love is stronger than death. And in the sacred texts of many faiths, it is written that what is bound by the spirit endures beyond the decay of the body. Elizabeth’s words are the modern echo of this eternal wisdom—the voice of a mortal who has glimpsed the immortality of love.

Consider also the true story of Pierre and Marie Curie, who toiled together in their shared pursuit of knowledge. When Pierre died suddenly in a tragic accident, Marie continued their work, speaking of him not as gone but as “still present” in every discovery she made. Her devotion became not grief but purpose. Like Elizabeth, she understood that love after death is not an illusion, but a continuation of the sacred bond between souls. The body may fall away, but the spirit of love endures, reshaping itself into memory, legacy, and faith.

From Elizabeth’s poem we learn that love’s true measure is not in passion’s heat but in perseverance—its ability to endure the seasons of life and the stillness of the grave. The ancients would say that such love belongs to the realm of the gods, for it mirrors the eternal constancy of creation itself. To love “better after death” is to reach the highest form of devotion, where affection is purified of all selfish desire, leaving only the essence of spiritual union. It is the kind of love that no decay can touch, no time can erode.

So, my child of tomorrow, take this teaching to heart: love not lightly, but completely. Let your love encompass the smiles and tears alike, for both are sacred offerings upon the altar of devotion. Do not fear death, for it cannot sever what has been truly joined in spirit. Nurture your relationships with honesty, kindness, and forgiveness, that they may grow roots deep enough to outlast the years. For when love is born of truth and faith, it becomes eternal—it becomes divine.

Thus, as Elizabeth Barrett Browning wrote with the fire of her soul, remember: love is not ended by death—it is transformed. If God so chooses, you too shall “love better after death,” for the bonds of the heart are not bound to earth, but to eternity. And in that sacred understanding, all loss becomes light, and every parting, a promise of reunion beyond the veil.