Elizabeth Barrett Browning - Catarina to Camoens lyrics

On the door you will not enter
 I have gazed too long: adieu!
Hope withdraws her peradventure
 Death is near me, and not you
   Come, O lover
   Close and cover
These poor eyes, you called, I ween
"Sweetest eyes were ever seen!"

When I heard you sing that burden
 In my vernal days and bowers
Other praises disregarding
 I but hearkened that of yours
   Only saying
   In heart-playing
"Blessed eyes mine eyes have been
If the sweetest his have seen!"

But all changes at this vesper
 Cold the sun shines down the door
If you stood there, would you whisper


 "Love, I love you, " as before
   Death pervading
   Now, and shading
Eyes you sang of, that yestreen
As the sweetest ever seen?

Yes i think, were you beside them
 Near the bed I die upon
Though their beauty you denied them
 As you stood there, looking down
   You would truly
   Call them duly
For the love’s sake found therein
"Sweetest eyes were ever seen"

And if you looked down upon them
 And if they looked up to you
All the light which has foregone them
 Would be gathered back anew:
   They would truly
   Be as duly
Love transformed to beauty’s sheen
"Sweetest eyes were ever seen"

But, ah me! you only see me
 In your thoughts of loving man
Smiling soft perhaps and dreamy
 Through the wavings of my fan
   And unweeting
   Go repeating
In your reverie serene
"Sweetest eyes were ever seen "

While my spirit leans and reaches
 From my body still and pale
Fain to hear what tender speech is
 In your love to help my bale
   O my poet
   Come and show it!
Come, of latest love, to glean
"Sweetest eyes were ever seen"

O my poet, O my prophet
 When you praised their sweetness so
Did you think, in singing of it
 That it might be near to go?
   Had you fancies
   From their glances
That the grave would quickly screen
"Sweetest eyes were ever seen"?

No reply the fountain’s warble
 In the courtyard sounds alone
As the water to the marble
 So my heart falls with a moan
   From love-sighing
   To this dying
Death forerunneth Love to win
"Sweetest eyes were ever seen"

Will you come? When I’m departed
 Where all sweetnesses are hid
Where thy voice, my tender hearted
 Will not lift up either lid
   Cry, O lover
   Love is over!
Cry, beneath the cypress green
"Sweetest eyes were ever seen!"

When the angelus is ringing
 Near the convent will you walk
And recall the choral singing
 Which brought angels down our talk?
   Spirit-shriven
   I viewed Heaven
Till you smiled "Is earth unclean
Sweetest eyes were ever seen?"

When beneath the palace lattice
 You ride slow as you have done
And you see a face there that is
 Not the old familiar one
   Will you oftly
   Murmur softly
"Here ye watched me morn and e’en
Sweetest eyes were ever seen!"

When the palace ladies, sitting
 Round your gittern, shall have said
"Poet, sing those verses written
 For the lady who is dead, "
   Will you tremble
   Yet dissemble
Or sing hoarse, with tears between
"Sweetest eyes were ever seen"?

"Sweetest eyes!" how sweet in flowings
 The repeated cadence is!
Though you sang a hundred poems
 Still the best one would be this
   I can hear it
   ’Twixt my spirit
And the earth noise intervene
"Sweetest eyes were ever seen!"

But the priest wait's for the praying
 And the choir are on their knees
And the soul must pass away in
 Strains more solemn-high than these
   Miserere
   For the weary!
Oh, no longer for Catrine
"Sweetest eyes were ever seen!"

Keep my riband, take and keep it
  (I have loosed it from my hair)
Feeling, while you overweep it
 Not alone in your despair
   Since with saintly
   Watch unfaintly
Out of heaven shall o’er you lean
"Sweetest eyes were ever seen"

But but now yet unremovèd
 Up to heaven, they glisten fast
You may cast away, Belovèd
 In your future all my past:
   Such old phrases
   May be praises
For some fairer bosom-queen
"Sweetest eyes were ever seen!"

Eyes of mine, what are ye doing?
 Faithless, faithless, praised amiss
If a tear be of your showing
 Dropt for any hope of his!
   Death has boldness
   Besides coldness
If unworthy tears demean
"Sweetest eyes were ever seen"

I will look out to his future
 I will bless it till it shine
Should he ever be a suitor
 Unto sweeter eyes than mine
   Sunshine gild them
   Angels shield them
Whatsoever eyes terrene
Be the sweetest his have seen!