“Sonnets from the Portuguese” XXXV (”If I leave all for thee”) - Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806-1861)

If I leave all for thee, wilt thou exchange And be all to me? Shall I never miss Home-talk and blessing and the common kiss That comes to each in turn, nor count it strange, When I look up, to drop on a new range Of walls and floors ... another home than this? Nay, wilt thou fill that place by me which is Filled by dead eyes too tender to know change? That's hardest. If to conquer love, has tried, To conquer grief, tries more ... as all things prove; For grief indeed is love and grief beside. Alas, I have grieved so I am hard to love. Yet love me—wilt thou? Open thine heart wide, And fold within, the wet wings of thy dove.

The Wounded Dove, Rebecca Solomon, 1866

The Wounded Eagle, Rosa Bonheur, ca. 1870

Panel from Room C of the North Palace at Nineveh, showing a lion being brought down during the Assyrian royal hunt.  Artist unknown; ca. 645-635 BCE.  Now in the British Museum.