Elizabeth Barrett Browning - L. E. L.'s Last Question (The Poetical Works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Vol. II) lyrics

"Do you think of me as I think of you
My friends, my friends?" She said
It from the sea
The English minstrel in her minstrelsy
While, under brighter skies than
Erst she knew, her heart grew dark
And groped there as the blind
To reach across the waves friends left behind
"Do you think of me as I think of you?"

It seemed not much to ask "as I of you?"
We all do ask the same no eyelids cover
Within the meekest eyes that question over:
And little in the world the Loving do
But sit (among the rocks?) and listen for
The echo of their own love evermore
"Do you think of me as I think of you?"

Love learnèd she had sung of love and love
And like a child that
Sleeping with dropt head
Upon the fairy book he lately read
Whatever household noises round him move
Hears in his dream some elfin turbulence
Even so suggestive to her inward sense
All sounds of life assumed one tune of love

And when the glory of her dream withdrew
When knightly gestes and courtly pageantries
Were broken in her visionary eyes
By tears the solemn seas attested true
Forgetting that sweet lute beside her hand
She asked not, "Do you praise me, O my land?"
But, "Think ye of me, friends, as I of you?"

Hers was the hand that played for many a year
Love's silver phrase for England
Smooth and well
Would God her heart's more inward oracle
In that lone moment might confirm her dear!
For when her questioned friends in agony
Made passionate response, "We think of thee
"
Her place was in the dust, too deep to hear

Could she not wait to
Catch their answering breath?
Was she content, content with ocean's sound
Which dashed it's mocking infinite around
One thirsty for a little love? beneath
Those stars content, where last
Her song had gone
They mute and cold in radiant life, as soon
Their singer was to be, in darksome death?

Bring your vain answers cry
"We think of thee!"
How think ye of her? warm in long ago
Delights? or crowned with budding
Bays? Not so none smile and none are
Crowned where lieth she
With all her visions unfulfilled save one
Her childhood's, of the palm-trees in the sun
And lo! their shadow on her sepulchre!

"Do ye think of me as I think of you?"
O friends, O kindred, O dear brotherhood
Of all the world! what are we that we should
For covenants of long affection sue?
Why press so near each other when the touch
Is barred by graves? Not much
And yet too much
Is this "Think of me as I think of you"

But while on mortal lips I shape anew
A sigh to mortal issues, verily
Above the unshaken stars that see us die
A vocal pathos rolls and He who drew
All life from dust, and for all tasted death
By death and life and love appealing, saith
Do you think of me as I think of you?