<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=116063" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>Sonnets from the Portuguese</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">I</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> I thought once how Theocritus had sung<br> Of the sweet years, the dear and wished-for years,<br> Who each one in a gracious hand appears<br> To bear a gift for mortals, old or young:<br> And, as I mused it in his antique tongue,<br> I saw, in gradual vision through my tears,<br> The sweet, sad years, the melancholy years,<br> Those of my own life, who by turns had flung<br> A shadow across me. Straightway I was 'ware,<br> So weeping, how a mystic Shape did move<br> Behind me, and drew me backward by the hair;<br> And a voice said in mastery, while I strove,--<br> "Guess now who holds thee!"--"Death," I said, But, there,<br> The silver answer rang, "Not Death, but Love."</div><div style="margin:10px 0">II</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> But only three in all God's universe<br> Have heard this word thou hast said,--Himself, beside<br> Thee speaking, and me listening! and replied<br> One of us . . . that was God, . . . and laid the curse<br> So darkly on my eyelids, as to amerce<br> My sight from seeing thee,--that if I had died,<br> The death-weights, placed there, would have signified<br> Less absolute exclusion. "Nay" is worse<br> From God than from all others, O my friend!<br> Men could not part us with their worldly jars,<br> Nor the seas change us, nor the tempests bend;<br> Our hands would touch for all the mountain-bars:<br> And, heaven being rolled between us at the end,<br> We should but vow the faster for the stars.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>III</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> Unlike are we, unlike, O princely Heart!<br> Unlike our uses and our destinies.<br> Our ministering two angels look surprise<br> On one another, as they strike athwart<br> Their wings in passing. Thou, bethink thee, art<br> A guest for queens to social pageantries,<br> With gages from a hundred brighter eyes<br> Than tears even can make mine, to play thy part<br> Of chief musician. What hast thou to do<br> With looking from the lattice-lights at me,<br> A poor, tired, wandering singer, singing through<br> The dark, and leaning up a cypress tree?<br> The chrism is on thine head,--on mine, the dew,--<br> And Death must dig the level where these agree.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>IV</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> Thou hast thy calling to some palace-floor,<br> Most gracious singer of high poems! where<br> The dancers will break footing, from the care<br> Of watching up thy pregnant lips for more.<br> And dost thou lift this house's latch too poor<br> For hand of thine? and canst thou think and bear<br> To let thy music drop here unaware<br> In folds of golden fulness at my door?<br> Look up and see the casement broken in,<br> The bats and owlets builders in the roof!<br> My cricket chirps against thy mandolin.<br> Hush, call no echo up in further proof<br> Of desolation! there's a voice within<br> That weeps . . . as thou must sing . . . alone, aloof.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">V</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> I lift my heavy heart up solemnly,<br> As once Electra her sepulchral urn,<br> And, looking in thine eyes, I over-turn<br> The ashes at thy feet. Behold and see<br> What a great heap of grief lay hid in me,<br> And how the red wild sparkles dimly burn<br> Through the ashen greyness. If thy foot in scorn<br> Could tread them out to darkness utterly,<br> It might be well perhaps. But if instead<br> Thou wait beside me for the wind to blow<br> The grey dust up, . . . those laurels on thine head,<br> O my Beloved, will not shield thee so,<br> That none of all the fires shall scorch and shred<br> The hair beneath. Stand further off then! go!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">VI</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> Go from me. Yet I feel that I shall stand<br> Henceforward in thy shadow. Nevermore<br> Alone upon the threshold of my door<br> Of individual life, I shall command<br> The uses of my soul, nor lift my hand<br> Serenely in the sunshine as before,<br> Without the sense of that which I forbore--<br> Thy touch upon the palm. The widest land<br> Doom takes to part us, leaves thy heart in mine<br> With pulses that beat double. What I do<br> And what I dream include thee, as the wine<br> Must taste of its own grapes. And when I sue<br> God for myself, He hears that name of thine,<br> And sees within my eyes the tears of two.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>VII</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> The face of all the world is changed, I think,<br> Since first I heard the footsteps of thy soul<br> Move still, oh, still, beside me, as they stole<br> Betwixt me and the dreadful outer brink<br> Of obvious death, where I, who thought to sink,<br> Was caught up into love, and taught the whole<br> Of life in a new rhythm. The cup of dole<br> God gave for baptism, I am fain to drink,<br> And praise its sweetness, Sweet, with thee anear.<br> The names of country, heaven, are changed away<br> For where thou art or shalt be, there or here;<br> And this . . . this lute and song . . . loved yesterday,<br> (The singing angels know) are only dear<br> Because thy name moves right in what they say.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br> VIII</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> What can I give thee back, O liberal<br> And princely giver, who hast brought the gold<br> And purple of thine heart, unstained, untold,<br> And laid them on the outside of the wall<br> For such as I to take or leave withal,<br> In unexpected largesse? am I cold,<br> Ungrateful, that for these most manifold<br> High gifts, I render nothing back at all?<br> Not so; not cold,--but very poor instead.<br> Ask God who knows. For frequent tears have run<br> The colours from my life, and left so dead<br> And pale a stuff, it were not fitly done<br> To give the same as pillow to thy head.<br> Go farther! let it serve to trample on.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>IX</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> Can it be right to give what I can give?<br> To let thee sit beneath the fall of tears<br> As salt as mine, and hear the sighing years<br> Re-sighing on my lips renunciative<br> Through those infrequent smiles which fail to live<br> For all thy adjurations? O my fears,<br> That this can scarce be right! We are not peers<br> So to be lovers; and I own, and grieve,<br> That givers of such gifts as mine are, must<br> Be counted with the ungenerous. Out, alas!<br> I will not soil thy purple with my dust,<br> Nor breathe my poison on thy Venice-glass,<br> Nor give thee any love--which were unjust.<br> Beloved, I only love thee! let it pass.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>X</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> Yet, love, mere love, is beautiful indeed<br> And worthy of acceptation. Fire is bright,<br> Let temple burn, or flax; an equal light<br> Leaps in the flame from cedar-plank or weed:<br> And love is fire. And when I say at need<br> I love thee . . . mark! . . . I love thee--in thy sight<br> I stand transfigured, glorified aright,<br> With conscience of the new rays that proceed<br> Out of my face toward thine. There's nothing low<br> In love, when love the lowest: meanest creatures<br> Who love God, God accepts while loving so.<br> And what I feel, across the inferior features<br> Of what I am, doth flash itself, and show<br> How that great work of Love enhances Nature's.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br> XI</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> And therefore if to love can be desert,<br> I am not all unworthy. Cheeks as pale<br> As these you see, and trembling knees that fail<br> To bear the burden of a heavy heart,--<br> This weary minstrel-life that once was girt<br> To climb Aornus, and can scarce avail<br> To pipe now 'gainst the valley nightingale<br> A melancholy music,--why advert<br> To these things? O Beloved, it is plain<br> I am not of thy worth nor for thy place!<br> And yet, because I love thee, I obtain<br> From that same love this vindicating grace<br> To live on still in love, and yet in vain,--<br> To bless thee, yet renounce thee to thy face.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>XII</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> Indeed this very love which is my boast,<br> And which, when rising up from breast to brow,<br> Doth crown me with a ruby large enow<br> To draw men's eyes and prove the inner cost,--<br> This love even, all my worth, to the uttermost,<br> I should not love withal, unless that thou<br> Hadst set me an example, shown me how,<br> When first thine earnest eyes with mine were crossed,<br> And love called love. And thus, I cannot speak<br> Of love even, as a good thing of my own:<br> Thy soul hath snatched up mine all faint and weak,<br> And placed it by thee on a golden throne,--<br> And that I love (O soul, we must be meek!)<br> Is by thee only, whom I love alone.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>XIII</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> And wilt thou have me fashion into speech<br> The love I bear thee, finding words enough,<br> And hold the torch out, while the winds are rough,<br> Between our faces, to cast light on each?--<br> I drop it at thy feet. I cannot teach<br> My hand to hold my spirits so far off<br> From myself--me--that I should bring thee proof<br> In words, of love hid in me out of reach.<br> Nay, let the silence of my womanhood<br> Commend my woman-love to thy belief,--<br> Seeing that I stand unwon, however wooed,<br> And rend the garment of my life, in brief,<br> By a most dauntless, voiceless fortitude,<br> Lest one touch of this heart convey its grief.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>XIV</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> If thou must love me, let it be for nought<br> Except for love's sake only. Do not say<br> "I love her for her smile--her look--her way<br> Of speaking gently,--for a trick of thought<br> That falls in well with mine, and certes brought<br> A sense of pleasant ease on such a day"--<br> For these things in themselves, Beloved, may<br> Be changed, or change for thee,--and love, so wrought,<br> May be unwrought so. Neither love me for<br> Thine own dear pity's wiping my cheeks dry,--<br> A creature might forget to weep, who bore<br> Thy comfort long, and lose thy love thereby!<br> But love me for love's sake, that evermore<br> Thou may'st love on, through love's eternity.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>XV</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> Accuse me not, beseech thee, that I wear<br> Too calm and sad a face in front of thine;<br> For we two look two ways, and cannot shine<br> With the same sunlight on our brow and hair.<br> On me thou lookest with no doubting care,<br> As on a bee shut in a crystalline;<br> Since sorrow hath shut me safe in love's divine,<br> And to spread wing and fly in the outer air<br> Were most impossible failure, if I strove<br> To fail so. But I look on thee--on thee--<br> Beholding, besides love, the end of love,<br> Hearing oblivion beyond memory;<br> As one who sits and gazes from above,<br> Over the rivers to the bitter sea.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>XVI</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> And yet, because thou overcomest so,<br> Because thou art more noble and like a king,<br> Thou canst prevail against my fears and fling<br> Thy purple round me, till my heart shall grow<br> Too close against thine heart henceforth to know<br> How it shook when alone. Why, conquering<br> May prove as lordly and complete a thing<br> In lifting upward, as in crushing low!<br> And as a vanquished soldier yields his sword<br> To one who lifts him from the bloody earth,<br> Even so, Beloved, I at last record,<br> Here ends my strife. If thou invite me forth,<br> I rise above abasement at the word.<br> Make thy love larger to enlarge my worth!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">XVII</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> My poet, thou canst touch on all the notes<br> God set between His After and Before,<br> And strike up and strike off the general roar<br> Of the rushing worlds a melody that floats<br> In a serene air purely. Antidotes<br> Of medicated music, answering for<br> Mankind's forlornest uses, thou canst pour<br> From thence into their ears. God's will devotes<br> Thine to such ends, and mine to wait on thine.<br> How, Dearest, wilt thou have me for most use?<br> A hope, to sing by gladly? or a fine<br> Sad memory, with thy songs to interfuse?<br> A shade, in which to sing--of palm or pine?<br> A grave, on which to rest from singing? Choose.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">XVIII</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> I never gave a lock of hair away<br> To a man, Dearest, except this to thee,<br> Which now upon my fingers thoughtfully<br> I ring out to the full brown length and say<br> "Take it." My day of youth went yesterday;<br> My hair no longer bounds to my foot's glee,<br> Nor plant I it from rose- or myrtle-tree,<br> As girls do, any more: it only may<br> Now shade on two pale cheeks the mark of tears,<br> Taught drooping from the head that hangs aside<br> Through sorrow's trick. I thought the funeral-shears<br> Would take this first, but Love is justified,--<br> Take it thou,--finding pure, from all those years,<br> The kiss my mother left here when she died.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">XIX</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> The soul's Rialto hath its merchandize;<br> I barter curl for curl upon that mart,<br> And from my poet's forehead to my heart<br> Receive this lock which outweighs argosies,--<br> As purply black, as erst to Pindar's eyes<br> The dim purpureal tresses gloomed athwart<br> The nine white Muse-brows. For this counterpart, . . .<br> The bay crown's shade, Beloved, I surmise,<br> Still lingers on thy curl, it is so black!<br> Thus, with a fillet of smooth-kissing breath,<br> I tie the shadows safe from gliding back,<br> And lay the gift where nothing hindereth;<br> Here on my heart, as on thy brow, to lack<br> No natural heat till mine grows cold in death.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>XX</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> Beloved, my Beloved, when I think<br> That thou wast in the world a year ago,<br> What time I sat alone here in the snow<br> And saw no footprint, heard the silence sink<br> No moment at thy voice, but, link by link,<br> Went counting all my chains as if that so<br> They never could fall off at any blow<br> Struck by thy possible hand,--why, thus I drink<br> Of life's great cup of wonder! Wonderful,<br> Never to feel thee thrill the day or night<br> With personal act or speech,--nor ever cull<br> Some prescience of thee with the blossoms white<br> Thou sawest growing! Atheists are as dull,<br> Who cannot guess God's presence out of sight.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">XXI</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> Say over again, and yet once over again,<br> That thou dost love me. Though the word repeated<br> Should seem a "cuckoo-song," as thou dost treat it,<br> Remember, never to the hill or plain,<br> Valley and wood, without her cuckoo-strain<br> Comes the fresh Spring in all her green completed.<br> Beloved, I, amid the darkness greeted<br> By a doubtful spirit-voice, in that doubt's pain<br> Cry, "Speak once more--thou lovest!" Who can fear<br> Too many stars, though each in heaven shall roll,<br> Too many flowers, though each shall crown the year?<br> Say thou dost love me, love me, love me--toll<br> The silver iterance!--only minding, Dear,<br> To love me also in silence with thy soul.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">XXII</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> When our two souls stand up erect and strong,<br> Face to face, silent, drawing nigh and nigher,<br> Until the lengthening wings break into fire<br> At either curved point,--what bitter wrong<br> Can the earth do to us, that we should not long<br> Be here contented? Think! In mounting higher,<br> The angels would press on us and aspire<br> To drop some golden orb of perfect song<br> Into our deep, dear silence. Let us stay<br> Rather on earth, Beloved,--where the unfit<br> Contrarious moods of men recoil away<br> And isolate pure spirits, and permit<br> A place to stand and love in for a day,<br> With darkness and the death-hour rounding it.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">XXIII</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> Is it indeed so? If I lay here dead,<br> Wouldst thou miss any life in losing mine?<br> And would the sun for thee more coldly shine<br> Because of grave-damps falling round my head?<br> I marvelled, my Beloved, when I read<br> Thy thought so in the letter. I am thine--<br> But . . . so much to thee? Can I pour thy wine<br> While my hands tremble? Then my soul, instead<br> Of dreams of death, resumes life's lower range.<br> Then, love me, Love! look on me--breathe on me!<br> As brighter ladies do not count it strange,<br> For love, to give up acres and degree,<br> I yield the grave for thy sake, and exchange<br> My near sweet view of heaven, for earth with thee!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">XXIV</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> Let the world's sharpness like a clasping knife<br> Shut in upon itself and do no harm<br> In this close hand of Love, now soft and warm,<br> And let us hear no sound of human strife<br> After the click of the shutting. Life to life--<br> I lean upon thee, Dear, without alarm,<br> And feel as safe as guarded by a charm<br> Against the stab of worldlings, who if rife<br> Are weak to injure. Very whitely still<br> The lilies of our lives may reassure<br> Their blossoms from their roots, accessible<br> Alone to heavenly dews that drop not fewer;<br> Growing straight, out of man's reach, on the hill.<br> God only, who made us rich, can make us poor.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">XXV</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> A heavy heart, Beloved, have I borne<br> From year to year until I saw thy face,<br> And sorrow after sorrow took the place<br> Of all those natural joys as lightly worn<br> As the stringed pearls, each lifted in its turn<br> By a beating heart at dance-time. Hopes apace<br> Were changed to long despairs, till God's own grace<br> Could scarcely lift above the world forlorn<br> My heavy heart. Then thou didst bid me bring<br> And let it drop adown thy calmly great<br> Deep being! Fast it sinketh, as a thing<br> Which its own nature does precipitate,<br> While thine doth close above it, mediating<br> Betwixt the stars and the unaccomplished fate.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>XXVI</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> I lived with visions for my company<br> Instead of men and women, years ago,<br> And found them gentle mates, nor thought to know<br> A sweeter music than they played to me.<br> But soon their trailing purple was not free<br> Of this world's dust, their lutes did silent grow,<br> And I myself grew faint and blind below<br> Their vanishing eyes. Then thou didst come--to be,<br> Beloved, what they seemed. Their shining fronts,<br> Their songs, their splendours, (better, yet the same,<br> As river-water hallowed into fonts)<br> Met in thee, and from out thee overcame<br> My soul with satisfaction of all wants:<br> Because God's gifts put man's best dreams to shame.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">XXVII</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> My own Beloved, who hast lifted me<br> From this drear flat of earth where I was thrown,<br> And, in betwixt the languid ringlets, blown<br> A life-breath, till the forehead hopefully<br> Shines out again, as all the angels see,<br> Before thy saving kiss! My own, my own,<br> Who camest to me when the world was gone,<br> And I who looked for only God, found thee!<br> I find thee; I am safe, and strong, and glad.<br> As one who stands in dewless asphodel,<br> Looks backward on the tedious time he had<br> In the upper life,--so I, with bosom-swell,<br> Make witness, here, between the good and bad,<br> That Love, as strong as Death, retrieves as well.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">XXVIII</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> My letters! all dead paper, mute and white!<br> And yet they seem alive and quivering<br> Against my tremulous hands which loose the string<br> And let them drop down on my knee to-night.<br> This said,--he wished to have me in his sight<br> Once, as a friend: this fixed a day in spring<br> To come and touch my hand . . . a simple thing,<br> Yet I wept for it!--this, . . . the paper's light . . .<br> Said, Dear I love thee; and I sank and quailed<br> As if God's future thundered on my past.<br> This said, I am thine--and so its ink has paled<br> With lying at my heart that beat too fast.<br> And this . . . O Love, thy words have ill availed<br> If, what this said, I dared repeat at last!</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>XXIX</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> I think of thee!--my thoughts do twine and bud<br> About thee, as wild vines, about a tree,<br> Put out broad leaves, and soon there's nought to see<br> Except the straggling green which hides the wood.<br> Yet, O my palm-tree, be it understood<br> I will not have my thoughts instead of thee<br> Who art dearer, better! Rather, instantly<br> Renew thy presence; as a strong tree should,<br> Rustle thy boughs and set thy trunk all bare,<br> And let these bands of greenery which insphere thee,<br> Drop heavily down,--burst, shattered everywhere!<br> Because, in this deep joy to see and hear thee<br> And breathe within thy shadow a new air,<br> I do not think of thee--I am too near thee.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>XXX</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> I see thine image through my tears to-night,<br> And yet to-day I saw thee smiling. How<br> Refer the cause?--Beloved, is it thou<br> Or I, who makes me sad? The acolyte<br> Amid the chanted joy and thankful rite<br> May so fall flat, with pale insensate brow,<br> On the altar-stair. I hear thy voice and vow,<br> Perplexed, uncertain, since thou art out of sight,<br> As he, in his swooning ears, the choir's amen.<br> Beloved, dost thou love? or did I see all<br> The glory as I dreamed, and fainted when<br> Too vehement light dilated my ideal,<br> For my soul's eyes? Will that light come again,<br> As now these tears come--falling hot and real?</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>XXXI</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> Thou comest! all is said without a word.<br> I sit beneath thy looks, as children do<br> In the noon-sun, with souls that tremble through<br> Their happy eyelids from an unaverred<br> Yet prodigal inward joy. Behold, I erred<br> In that last doubt! and yet I cannot rue<br> The sin most, but the occasion--that we two<br> Should for a moment stand unministered<br> By a mutual presence. Ah, keep near and close,<br> Thou dove-like help! and when my fears would rise,<br> With thy broad heart serenely interpose:<br> Brood down with thy divine sufficiencies<br> These thoughts which tremble when bereft of those,<br> Like callow birds left desert to the skies.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>XXXII</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> The first time that the sun rose on thine oath<br> To love me, I looked forward to the moon<br> To slacken all those bonds which seemed too soon<br> And quickly tied to make a lasting troth.<br> Quick-loving hearts, I thought, may quickly loathe;<br> And, looking on myself, I seemed not one<br> For such man's love!--more like an out-of-tune<br> Worn viol, a good singer would be wroth<br> To spoil his song with, and which, snatched in haste,<br> Is laid down at the first ill-sounding note.<br> I did not wrong myself so, but I placed<br> A wrong on thee. For perfect strains may float<br> 'Neath master-hands, from instruments defaced,--<br> And great souls, at one stroke, may do and doat.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">XXXIII</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> Yes, call me by my pet-name! let me hear<br> The name I used to run at, when a child,<br> From innocent play, and leave the cowslips plied,<br> To glance up in some face that proved me dear<br> With the look of its eyes. I miss the clear<br> Fond voices which, being drawn and reconciled<br> Into the music of Heaven's undefiled,<br> Call me no longer. Silence on the bier,<br> While I call God--call God!--so let thy mouth<br> Be heir to those who are now exanimate.<br> Gather the north flowers to complete the south,<br> And catch the early love up in the late.<br> Yes, call me by that name,--and I, in truth,<br> With the same heart, will answer and not wait.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>XXXIV</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> With the same heart, I said, I'll answer thee<br> As those, when thou shalt call me by my name--<br> Lo, the vain promise! is the same, the same,<br> Perplexed and ruffled by life's strategy?<br> When called before, I told how hastily<br> I dropped my flowers or brake off from a game.<br> To run and answer with the smile that came<br> At play last moment, and went on with me<br> Through my obedience. When I answer now,<br> I drop a grave thought, break from solitude;<br> Yet still my heart goes to thee--ponder how--<br> Not as to a single good, but all my good!<br> Lay thy hand on it, best one, and allow<br> That no child's foot could run fast as this blood.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> XXXV</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> If I leave all for thee, wilt thou exchange<br> And be all to me? Shall I never miss<br> Home-talk and blessing and the common kiss<br> That comes to each in turn, nor count it strange,<br> When I look up, to drop on a new range<br> Of walls and floors, another home than this?<br> Nay, wilt thou fill that place by me which is<br> Filled by dead eyes too tender to know change<br> That's hardest. If to conquer love, has tried,<br> To conquer grief, tries more, as all things prove,<br> For grief indeed is love and grief beside.<br> Alas, I have grieved so I am hard to love.<br> Yet love me--wilt thou? Open thy heart wide,<br> And fold within, the wet wings of thy dove.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">XXXVI</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> When we met first and loved, I did not build<br> Upon the event with marble. Could it mean<br> To last, a love set pendulous between<br> Sorrow and sorrow? Nay, I rather thrilled,<br> Distrusting every light that seemed to gild<br> The onward path, and feared to overlean<br> A finger even. And, though I have grown serene<br> And strong since then, I think that God has willed<br> A still renewable fear . . . O love, O troth . . .<br> Lest these enclasped hands should never hold,<br> This mutual kiss drop down between us both<br> As an unowned thing, once the lips being cold.<br> And Love, be false! if he, to keep one oath,<br> Must lose one joy, by his life's star foretold.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">XXXVII</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> Pardon, oh, pardon, that my soul should make<br> Of all that strong divineness which I know<br> For thine and thee, an image only so<br> Formed of the sand, and fit to shift and break.<br> It is that distant years which did not take<br> Thy sovranty, recoiling with a blow,<br> Have forced my swimming brain to undergo<br> Their doubt and dread, and blindly to forsake<br> Thy purity of likeness and distort<br> Thy worthiest love to a worthless counterfeit.<br> As if a shipwrecked Pagan, safe in port,<br> His guardian sea-god to commemorate,<br> Should set a sculptured porpoise, gills a-snort<br> And vibrant tail, within the temple-gate.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">XXXVIII</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> First time he kissed me, he but only kissed<br> The fingers of this hand wherewith I write;<br> And ever since, it grew more clean and white.<br> Slow to world-greetings, quick with its "O, list,"<br> When the angels speak. A ring of amethyst<br> I could not wear here, plainer to my sight,<br> Than that first kiss. The second passed in height<br> The first, and sought the forehead, and half missed,<br> Half falling on the hair. O beyond meed!<br> That was the chrism of love, which love's own crown,<br> With sanctifying sweetness, did precede<br> The third upon my lips was folded down<br> In perfect, purple state; since when, indeed,<br> I have been proud and said, "My love, my own."</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>XXXIX</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> Because thou hast the power and own'st the grace<br> To look through and behind this mask of me,<br> (Against which, years have beat thus blanchingly,<br> With their rains,) and behold my soul's true face,<br> The dim and weary witness of life's race,--<br> Because thou hast the faith and love to see,<br> Through that same soul's distracting lethargy,<br> The patient angel waiting for a place<br> In the new Heavens,--because nor sin nor woe,<br> Nor God's infliction, nor death's neighbourhood,<br> Nor all which others viewing, turn to go,<br> Nor all which makes me tired of all, self-viewed,--<br> Nothing repels thee, . . . Dearest, teach me so<br> To pour out gratitude, as thou dost, good!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">XL</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> Oh, yes! they love through all this world of ours!<br> I will not gainsay love, called love forsooth:<br> I have heard love talked in my early youth,<br> And since, not so long back but that the flowers<br> Then gathered, smell still. Mussulmans and Giaours<br> Throw kerchiefs at a smile, and have no ruth<br> For any weeping. Polypheme's white tooth<br> Slips on the nut if, after frequent showers,<br> The shell is over-smooth,--and not so much<br> Will turn the thing called love, aside to hate<br> Or else to oblivion. But thou art not such<br> A lover, my Beloved! thou canst wait<br> Through sorrow and sickness, to bring souls to touch,<br> And think it soon when others cry "Too late."</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>XLI</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> I thank all who have loved me in their hearts,<br> With thanks and love from mine. Deep thanks to all<br> Who paused a little near the prison-wall<br> To hear my music in its louder parts<br> Ere they went onward, each one to the mart's<br> Or temple's occupation, beyond call.<br> But thou, who, in my voice's sink and fall<br> When the sob took it, thy divinest Art's<br> Own instrument didst drop down at thy foot<br> To harken what I said between my tears, . . .<br> Instruct me how to thank thee! Oh, to shoot<br> My soul's full meaning into future years,<br> That they should lend it utterance, and salute<br> Love that endures, from life that disappears!</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>XLII</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> My future will not copy fair my past--<br> I wrote that once; and thinking at my side<br> My ministering life-angel justified<br> The word by his appealing look upcast<br> To the white throne of God, I turned at last,<br> And there, instead, saw thee, not unallied<br> To angels in thy soul! Then I, long tried<br> By natural ills, received the comfort fast,<br> While budding, at thy sight, my pilgrim's staff<br> Gave out green leaves with morning dews impearled.<br> I seek no copy now of life's first half:<br> Leave here the pages with long musing curled,<br> And write me new my future's epigraph,<br> New angel mine, unhoped for in the world!</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> XLIII</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.<br> I love thee to the depth and breadth and height<br> My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight<br> For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.<br> I love thee to the level of everyday's<br> Most quiet need, by sun and candlelight.<br> I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;<br> I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.<br> I love thee with the passion put to use<br> In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.<br> I love thee with a love I seemed to lose<br> With my lost saints,--I love thee with the breath,<br> Smiles, tears, of all my life!--and, if God choose,<br> I shall but love thee better after death.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>XLIV</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> Beloved, thou hast brought me many flowers<br> Plucked in the garden, all the summer through,<br> And winter, and it seemed as if they grew<br> In this close room, nor missed the sun and showers.<br> So, in the like name of that love of ours,<br> Take back these thoughts which here unfolded too,<br> And which on warm and cold days I withdrew<br> From my heart's ground. Indeed, those beds and bowers<br> Be overgrown with bitter weeds and rue,<br> And wait thy weeding; yet here's eglantine,<br> Here's ivy!--take them, as I used to do<br> Thy flowers, and keep them where they shall not pine.<br> Instruct thine eyes to keep their colours true,<br> And tell thy soul, their roots are left in mine.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=Elizabeth+Barrett+Browning">Elizabeth Barrett Browning</a><div class=q> <img src="https://www.citatepedia.ro/g/32share.png" style="float:left" alt="Share"> <script type="text/javascript" src="//s7.addthis.com/js/300/addthis_widget.js#pubid=citatepedia" async="async"></script><div style="display:inline-block" class="addthis_sharing_toolbox" data-url="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=116063" data-title="Sonnets from the Portuguese de Elizabeth Barrett Browning" data-description="I/ I thought once how Theocritus had sung/ Of the sweet years, the dear and wished-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 ..."></div> </div> </div>

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