Elizabeth Barrett Browning - A Denial lyrics
[Elizabeth Barrett Browning - A Denial lyrics]
We have met late it is too late to meet
O friend, not more than friend!
Death’s forecome shroud is tangled
Round my feet
And if I step or stir, I touch the end
In this last jeopardy
Can I approach thee, I, who cannot move?
How shall I answer thy request for love?
Look in my face and see
I love thee not, I dare not love thee! go
In silence drop my hand
If thou seek roses, seek them where they blow
In garden-alleys, not in desert-sand
Can life and death agree
That thou shouldst stoop thy
Song to my complaint?
I cannot love thee if the word is faint
Look in my face and see
I might have loved thee in some former days
Oh, then, my spirit's had leapt
As now they sink, at hearing thy love-praise!
Before these faded cheeks were overwept
Had this been asked of me
To love thee with my whole
Strong heart and head
I should have said still yes
But smiled and said
"Look in my face and see!"
But now god sees me, God, who took my heart
And drowned it in life’s surge
In all your wide warm earth I have no part
A light song overcomes me like a dirge
Could Love’s great harmony
The saints keep step to when
Their bonds are loose
Not weigh me down? am I a wife to choose?
Look in my face and see
While I behold, as plain as one who dreams
Some woman of full worth
Whose voice, as cadenced as
A silver stream’s
Shall prove the fountain-soul which
Sends it forth
One younger, more thought-free
And fair and gay, than I, thou must forget
With brighter eyes than these
Which are not wet
Look in my face and see!
So farewell thou, whom I have known too late
To let thee come so near
Be counted happy while men call thee great
And one belovèd woman feels thee dear!
Not I! that cannot be
I am lost, I am changed, I must go farther
Where the change shall take me worse
And no one dare Look in my face and see
Meantime I bless thee by
These thoughts of mine
I bless thee from all such!
I bless thy lamp to oil, thy cup to wine
Thy hearth to joy, thy hand to an equal touch
Of loyal troth for me
I love thee not, I love thee not! away!
Here’s no more courage in my soul to say
"Look in my face and see"
O friend, not more than friend!
Death’s forecome shroud is tangled
Round my feet
And if I step or stir, I touch the end
In this last jeopardy
Can I approach thee, I, who cannot move?
How shall I answer thy request for love?
Look in my face and see
I love thee not, I dare not love thee! go
In silence drop my hand
If thou seek roses, seek them where they blow
In garden-alleys, not in desert-sand
Can life and death agree
That thou shouldst stoop thy
Song to my complaint?
I cannot love thee if the word is faint
Look in my face and see
I might have loved thee in some former days
Oh, then, my spirit's had leapt
As now they sink, at hearing thy love-praise!
Before these faded cheeks were overwept
Had this been asked of me
To love thee with my whole
Strong heart and head
I should have said still yes
But smiled and said
"Look in my face and see!"
But now god sees me, God, who took my heart
And drowned it in life’s surge
In all your wide warm earth I have no part
A light song overcomes me like a dirge
Could Love’s great harmony
The saints keep step to when
Their bonds are loose
Not weigh me down? am I a wife to choose?
Look in my face and see
While I behold, as plain as one who dreams
Some woman of full worth
Whose voice, as cadenced as
A silver stream’s
Shall prove the fountain-soul which
Sends it forth
One younger, more thought-free
And fair and gay, than I, thou must forget
With brighter eyes than these
Which are not wet
Look in my face and see!
So farewell thou, whom I have known too late
To let thee come so near
Be counted happy while men call thee great
And one belovèd woman feels thee dear!
Not I! that cannot be
I am lost, I am changed, I must go farther
Where the change shall take me worse
And no one dare Look in my face and see
Meantime I bless thee by
These thoughts of mine
I bless thee from all such!
I bless thy lamp to oil, thy cup to wine
Thy hearth to joy, thy hand to an equal touch
Of loyal troth for me
I love thee not, I love thee not! away!
Here’s no more courage in my soul to say
"Look in my face and see"