Elizabeth Barrett Browning - Portuguese I lyrics
[Elizabeth Barrett Browning - Portuguese I lyrics]
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 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"
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 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"