Sonnets from the Portuguese i-v

Sonnets from the Portuguese i

I THOUGHT once how Theocritus had sung

Of the sweet years, the dear and wishd-for years,

Who each one in a gracious hand appears

To bear a gift for mortals old or young:

And, as I mused it in his antique tongue,

I saw in gradual vision through my tears

The sweet, sad years, the melancholy years--

Those of my own life, who by turns had flung

A shadow across me. Straightway I was ware,

So weeping, how a mystic Shape did move

Behind me, and drew me backward by the hair;

And a voice said in mastery, while I strove,

Guess now who holds thee?--Death, I said. But there

The silver answer rang--Not Death, but Love.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Sonnets from the Portuguese ii

UNLIKE are we, unlike, O princely Heart!

Unlike our uses and our destinies.

Our ministering two angels look surprise

On one another, as they strike athwart

Their wings in passing. Thou, bethink thee, art

A guest for queens to social pageantries,

With gages from a hundred brighter eyes

Than tears even can make mine, to play thy part

Of chief musician. What hast thou to do

With looking from the lattice-lights at me--

A poor, tired, wandering singer, singing through

The dark, and leaning up a cypress tree?

The chrism is on thine head--on mine the dew--

And Death must dig the level where these agree.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Sonnets from the Portuguese iii

GO from me. Yet I feel that I shall stand

Henceforward in thy shadow. Nevermore

Alone upon the threshold of my door

Of individual life I shall command

The uses of my soul, nor lift my hand

Serenely in the sunshine as before,

Without the sense of that which I forbore--

Thy touch upon the palm. The widest land

Doom takes to part us, leaves thy heart in mine

With pulses that beat double. What I do

And what I dream include thee, as the wine

Must taste of its own grapes. And when I sue

God for myself, He hears that name of thine,

And sees within my eyes the tears of two.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Sonnets from the Portuguese iv

IF thou must love me, let it be for naught

Except for loves sake only. Do not say,

I love her for her smile--her look--her way

Of speaking gently,--for a trick of thought

That falls in well with mine, and certes brought

A sense of pleasant ease on such a day--

For these things in themselves, Beloved, may

Be changed, or change for thee--and love, so wrought,

May be unwrought so. Neither love me for

Thine own dear pitys wiping my cheeks dry:

A creature might forget to weep, who bore

Thy comfort long, and lose thy love thereby!

But love me for loves sake, that evermore

Thou mayst love on, through loves eternity.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Sonnets from the Portuguese v

WHEN our two souls stand up erect and strong,

Face to face, silent, drawing nigh and nigher,

Until the lengthening wings break into fire

At either curving point,--what bitter wrong

Can the earth do us, that we should not long

Be here contented? Think! In mounting higher,

The angels would press on us, and aspire

To drop some golden orb of perfect song

Into our deep, dear silence. Let us stay

Rather on earth, Beloved--where the unfit

Contrarious moods of men recoil away

And isolate pure spirits, and permit

A place to stand and love in for a day,

With darkness and the death-hour rounding it.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning