Elizabeth Barrett Browning - Sonnets From The Portuguese 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"

But only three in all God’s universe
Have heard this word thou hast said, Himself
Beside
Thee speaking, and me listening! and replied
One of us that was God, and laid the curse
So darkly on my eyelids, as to amerce
My sight from seeing thee, that
If I had died
The deathweights, placed there
Would have signified
Less absolute exclusion "Nay" is worse
From God than from all others, O my friend!
Men could not part us
With their worldly jars
Nor the seas change us, nor the tempests bend
Our hands would touch for
All the mountain bars:
And, heaven being rolled between
Us at the end
We should but vow the faster for the stars

Unlike are we, unlike, O princely Heart!
Unlike our uses and our destinies
Our ministering two angels look surprise
On one another, as they strike athwart
Their wings in passing thou, bethink thee
Art
A guest for queens to social pageantries
With gages from a hundred brighter eyes
Than tears even can make mine
To play thy part
Of chief musician what hast thou to do
With looking from the lattice-lights at me
A poor, tired, wandering singer
Singing through
The dark, and leaning up a cypress tree?
The chrism is on thine head
On mine, the dew, and Death must dig the
Level where these agree

Thou hast thy calling to some palace-floor
Most gracious singer of high poems! where
The dancers will break footing, from the care
Of watching up thy pregnant lips for more
And dost thou lift this
House’s latch too poor
For hand of thine? and canst
Thou think and bear
To let thy music drop here unaware
In folds of golden fulness at my door?
Look up and see the casement broken in
The bats and owlets builders in the roof!
My cricket chirps against thy mandolin
Hush, call no echo up in further proof
Of desolation! there’s a voice within
That weeps as thou must sing alone, aloof

I lift my heavy heart up solemnly
As once Electra her sepulchral urn
And, looking in thine eyes, I overturn
The ashes at thy feet behold and see
What a great heap of grief lay hid in me
And how the red wild sparkles dimly burn
Through the ashen greyness if
Thy foot in scorn
Could tread them out to darkness utterly
It might be well perhaps but, if instead
Thou wait beside me for the wind to blow
The grey dust up, those
Laurels on thine head
O my Belovèd, will not shield thee so
That none of all the fires
Shall scorch and shred
The hair beneath stand further off then! go

Go from me yet I feel that I shall stand
Henceforward in thy shadow nevermore
Alone upon the threshold of my door
Of individual life, I shall command
The uses of my soul, nor lift my hand
Serenely in the sunshine as before
Without the sense of that which I forbore
Thy touch upon the palm the widest land
Doom takes to part us
Leaves thy heart in mine
With pulses that beat double what I do
And what I dream include thee, as the wine
Must taste of it's own grapes and when I sue
God for myself, He hears that name of thine
And sees within my eyes the tears of two

The face of all the world
Is changed, I think
Since first I heard the footsteps of thy soul
Move still, oh, still, beside me
As they stole
Betwixt me and the dreadful outer brink
Of obvious death, where I
Who thought to sink
Was caught up into love, and taught the whole
Of life in a new rhythm the cup of dole
God gave for baptism, I am fain to drink
And praise it's sweetness, Sweet
With thee anear
The names of country, heaven
Are changed away
For where thou art or shalt be, there or here
And this this lute and song loved yesterday
(The singing angels know) are only dear
Because thy name moves right in what they say

What can I give thee back, O liberal
And princely giver, who hast brought the gold
And purple of thine heart, unstained, untold
And laid them on the outside of the wall
For such as I to take or leave withal
In unexpected largesse? am I cold
Ungrateful, that for these most manifold
High gifts, I render nothing back at all?
Not so not cold, but very poor instead
Ask God who knows for frequent tears have run
The colours from my life, and left so dead
And pale a stuff, it were not fitly done
To give the same as pillow to thy head
Go farther! let it serve to trample on

Can it be right to give what I can give?
To let thee sit beneath the fall of tears
As salt as mine, and hear the sighing years
Re-sighing on my lips renunciative
Through those infrequent smiles which
Fail to live
For all thy adjurations? O my fears
That this can scarce be right!
We are not peers
So to be lovers and I own, and grieve
That givers of such gifts as mine are, must
Be counted with the ungenerous out, alas!
I will not soil thy purple with my dust
Nor breathe my poison on thy Venice-glass
Nor give thee any love which were unjust
Beloved, I only love thee! let it pass

Yet, love, mere love, is beautiful indeed
And worthy of acceptation fire is bright
Let temple burn, or flax an equal light
Leaps in the flame from cedar-plank or weed:
And love is fire and when I say at need
I love thee mark! i love thee in thy sight
I stand transfigured, glorified aright
With conscience of the new rays that proceed
Out of my face toward
Thine there’s nothing low in love
When love the lowest: meanest creatures
Who love God, God accepts while loving so
And what I feel, across the inferior features
Of what I am, doth flash it'self, and show
How that great work of Love enhances Nature’s

And therefore if to love can be desert
I am not all unworthy cheeks as pale
As these you see
And trembling knees that fail
To bear the burden of a heavy heart
This weary minstrel-life that once was girt
To climb Aornus, and can scarce avail
To pipe now ’gainst the valley nightingale
A melancholy music, why advert
To these things? O Belovèd, it is plain
I am not of thy worth nor for thy place!
And yet, because I love thee, I obtain
From that same love this vindicating grace
To live on still in love, and yet in vain
To bless thee, yet renounce thee to thy face

Indeed this very love which is my boast
And which, when rising up
From breast to brow
Doth crown me with a ruby large enow
To draw men’s eyes and prove the inner cost
This love even, all my
Worth, to the uttermost
I should not love withal, unless that thou
Hadst set me an example, shown me how
When first thine earnest eyes
With mine were crossed
And love called love and thus, I cannot speak
Of love even, as a good thing of my own:
Thy soul hath snatched up mine
All faint and weak
And placed it by thee on a golden throne
And that I love (O soul, we must be meek)
Is by thee only, whom I love alone

And wilt thou have me fashion into speech
The love I bear thee, finding words enough
And hold the torch out, while
The winds are rough
Between our faces, to cast light on each?
I drop it at thy feet i cannot teach
My hand to hold my spirit so far off
From myself me that I should bring thee proof
In words, of love hid in me out of reach
Nay, let the silence of my womanhood
Commend my woman-love to thy belief
Seeing that I stand unwon, however wooed
And rend the garment of my life, in brief
By a most dauntless, voiceless fortitude
Lest one touch of this
Heart convey it's grief

If thou must love me, let it be for nought
Except for love’s sake only do not say
"I love her for her smile her look her way
Of speaking gently, for a trick of thought
That falls in well with mine
And certes brought
A sense of pleasant ease on such a day"
For these things in themselves, Belovèd, may
Be changed, or change for thee
And love, so wrought
May be unwrought so neither love me for
Thine own dear pity’s wiping my cheeks dry
A creature might forget to weep, who bore
Thy comfort long, and lose thy love thereby!
But love me for love’s sake, that evermore
Thou mayst love on, through love’s eternity

Accuse me not, beseech thee, that I wear
Too calm and sad a face in front of thine
For we two look two ways, and cannot shine
With the same sunlight on our brow and hair
On me thou lookest with no doubting care
As on a bee shut in a crystalline
Since sorrow hath shut me
Safe in love’s divine
And to spread wing and fly in the outer air
Were most impossible failure, if I strove
To fail so but, I look on thee on thee
Beholding, besides love, the end of love
Hearing oblivion beyond memory
As one who sit's and gazes from above
Over the rivers to the bitter sea

And yet, because thou overcomest so
Because thou art more noble and like a king
Thou canst prevail against my fears and fling
Thy purple round me, till my heart shall grow
Too close against thine heart
Henceforth to know
How it shook when alone why, conquering
May prove as lordly and complete a thing
In lifting upward, as in crushing low!
And as a vanquished soldier yields his sword
To one who lifts him from the bloody earth
Even so, Belovèd, I at last record
Here ends my strife if thou invite me forth
I rise above abasement at the word
Make thy love larger to enlarge my worth

My poet, thou canst touch on all the notes
God set between His After and Before
And strike up and strike off the general roar
Of the rushing worlds a melody that floats
In a serene air purely antidotes
Of medicated music, answering for
Mankind’s forlornest uses, thou canst pour
From thence into their ears
God’s will devotes
Thine to such ends, and mine to wait on thine
How, Dearest, wilt thou have me for most use?
A hope, to sing by gladly? or a fine
Sad memory, with thy songs to interfuse?
A shade, in which to sing of palm or pine?
A grave
On which to rest from singing? Choose

I never gave a lock of hair away
To a man, Dearest, except this to thee
Which now upon my fingers thoughtfully
I ring out to the full brown length and say
"Take it" My day of youth went yesterday
My hair no longer bounds to my foot’s glee
Nor plant I it from rose or myrtle-tree
As girls do, any more: it only may
Now shade on two pale cheeks
The mark of tears
Taught drooping from the head
That hangs aside through sorrow’s trick i
Thought the funeral-shears
Would take this first, but Love is justified
Take it thou, finding pure
From all those years
The kiss my mother left here when she died

The soul’s Rialto hath it's merchandise
I barter curl for curl upon that mart
And from my poet’s forehead to my heart
Receive this lock which outweighs argosies
As purply black, as erst to Pindar’s eyes
The dim purpureal tresses gloomed athwart
The nine white Muse-brows
For this counterpart
The bay-crown’s shade, Belovèd, I surmise
Still lingers on thy curl, it is so black!
Thus, with a fillet of smooth-kissing breath
I tie the shadows safe from gliding back
And lay the gift where nothing hindereth
Here on my heart, as on thy brow, to lack
No natural heat till mine grows cold in death

Beloved, my Belovèd, when I think
That thou wast in the world a year ago
What time I sat alone here in the snow
And saw no footprint, heard the silence sink
No moment at thy voice, but, link by link
Went counting all my chains as if that so
They never could fall off at any blow
Struck by thy possible hand, why
Thus I drink
Of life’s great cup of wonder! Wonderful
Never to feel thee thrill the day or night
With personal act or speech, nor ever cull
Some prescience of thee with
The blossoms white
Thou sawest growing! Atheists are as dull
Who cannot guess God’s presence out of sight

Say over again, and yet once over again
That thou dost love me
Though the word repeated
Should seem "a cuckoo-song
" as thou dost treat it
Remember, never to the hill or plain
Valley and wood, without her cuckoo-strain
Comes the fresh Spring in
All her green completed
Belovèd, I, amid the darkness greeted
By a doubtful spirit-voice
In that doubt’s pain
Cry, "Speak once more thou
Lovest!" Who can fear
Too many stars, though each
In heaven shall roll, too many flowers
Though each shall crown the year?
Say thou dost love me, love me, love me toll
The silver iterance! only minding, Dear
To love me also in silence with thy soul

When our two souls stand up erect and strong
Face to face, silent, drawing
Nigh and nigher
Until the lengthening wings break into fire
At either curvèd point, what bitter wrong
Can the earth do to us
That we should not long
Be here contented? Think in mounting higher
The angels would press on us and aspire
To drop some golden orb of perfect song
Into our deep, dear silence let us stay
Rather on earth, Belovèd, where the unfit
Contrarious moods of men recoil away
And isolate pure spirit's, and permit
A place to stand and love in for a day
With darkness and the death-hour rounding it

Is it indeed so? If I lay here dead
Wouldst thou miss any life in losing mine?
And would the sun for thee more coldly shine
Because of grave damps falling round my head?
I marvelled, my Belovèd, when I read
Thy thought so in the letter i am thine
But so much to thee? Can I pour thy wine
While my hands tremble? Then my soul, instead
Of dreams of death
Resumes life’s lower range then, love me
Love! look on me breathe on me!
As brighter ladies do not count it strange
For love, to give up acres and degree
I yield the grave for thy sake, and exchange
My near sweet view of Heaven
For earth with thee!

Let the world’s sharpness, like
A clasping knife
Shut in upon it'self and do no harm
In this close hand of Love
Now soft and warm
And let us hear no sound of human strife
After the click of the shutting life to life
I lean upon thee, Dear, without alarm
And feel as safe as guarded by a charm
Against the stab of worldlings, who if rife
Are weak to injure very-whitely still
The lilies of our lives may reassure
Their blossoms from their roots, accessible
Alone to heavenly dews that drop not fewer
Growing straight, out of man’s reach
On the hill
God only, who made us rich, can make us poor

A heavy heart, Belovèd, have I borne
From year to year until I saw thy face
And sorrow after sorrow took the place
Of all those natural joys as lightly worn
As the stringed pearls
Each lifted in it's turn
By a beating heart at dance-time hopes apace
Were changed to long despairs
Till God’s own grace
Could scarcely lift above the world forlorn
My heavy heart then thou didst bid me bring
And let it drop adown thy calmly great
Deep being! Fast it sinketh, as a thing
Which it's own nature doth precipitate
While thine doth close above it, mediating
Betwixt the stars and the unaccomplished fate

I lived with visions for my company
Instead of men and women, years ago
And found them gentle mates
Nor thought to know
A sweeter music than they played to me
But soon their trailing purple was not free
Of this world’s dust, their
Lutes did silent grow
And I myself grew faint and blind below
Their vanishing eyes then thou
Didst come to be, belovèd, what they seemed
Their shining fronts
Their songs, their splendours
(better, yet the same
As river-water hallowed into fonts)
Met in thee, and from out thee overcame
My soul with satisfaction of all wants:
Because God’s gifts put man’s
Best dreams to shame

My own Belovèd, who hast lifted me
From this drear flat of earth
Where I was thrown
And, in betwixt the languid ringlets, blown
A life-breath, till the forehead hopefully
Shines out again, as all the angels see
Before thy saving kiss! My own, my own
Who camest to me when the world was gone
And I who looked for only God, found thee!
I find thee I am safe, and strong, and glad
As one who stands in dewless asphodel
Looks backward on the tedious time he had
In the upper life, so I, with bosom-swell
Make witness, here, between the good and bad
That Love, as strong as Death
Retrieves as well

My letters! all dead paper, mute and white!
And yet they seem alive and quivering
Against my tremulous hands which
Loose the string
And let them drop down on my knee to-night
This said, he wished to have me in his sight
Once, as a friend: this fixed a day in spring
To come and touch my hand a simple thing
Yet I wept for it! this, the paper’s light
Said, Dear
I love thee and I sank and quailed
As if God’s future thundered on my past
This said
I am thine and so it's ink has paled
With lying at my heart that beat too fast
And this o Love, thy words have ill availed
If, what this said, I dared repeat at last!

I think of thee! my thoughts do twine and bud
About thee, as wild vines, about a tree
Put out broad leaves
And soon there’s nought to see
Except the straggling green which
Hides the wood
Yet, O my palm-tree, be it understood
I will not have my thoughts instead of thee
Who art dearer, better! Rather, instantly
Renew thy presence as a strong tree should
Rustle thy boughs and set thy trunk all bare
And let these bands of
Greenery which insphere thee
Drop heavily down, burst, shattered
Everywhere! Because, in this deep joy to
See and hear thee
And breathe within thy shadow a new air
I do not think of thee I am too near thee

I see thine image through my tears to-night
And yet to day I saw thee smiling how
Refer the cause? Belovèd, is it thou
Or I, who makes me sad? The acolyte
Amid the chanted joy and thankful rite
May so fall flat, with pale insensate brow
On the altar-stair i hear thy voice and vow
Perplexed, uncertain, since thou art
Out of sight
As he, in his swooning ears, the choir’s Amen
Belovèd, dost thou love? or did I see all
The glory as I dreamed, and fainted when
Too vehement light dilated my ideal
For my soul’s eyes? Will
That light come again
As now these tears come falling hot and real?

Thou comest! all is said without a word
I sit beneath thy looks, as children do
In the noon-sun
With souls that tremble through
Their happy eyelids from an unaverred
Yet prodigal inward joy behold, I erred
In that last doubt! and yet I cannot rue
The sin most, but the occasion that we two
Should for a moment stand unministered
By a mutual presence ah, keep near and close
Thou dovelike help! and, when
My fears would rise
With thy broad heart serenely interpose:
Brood down with thy divine sufficiencies
These thoughts which tremble when
Bereft of those
Like callow birds left desert to the skies

The first time that the sun
Rose on thine oath
To love me, I looked forward to the moon
To slacken all those bonds
Which seemed too soon
And quickly tied to make a lasting troth
Quick-loving hearts, I thought
May quickly loathe
And, looking on myself, I seemed not one
For such man’s love! more like an out-of tune
Worn viol, a good singer would be wroth
To spoil his song with, and
Which, snatched in haste
Is laid down at the first ill-sounding note
I did not wrong myself so, but I placed
A wrong on thee for perfect strains may float
’Neath master hands, from
Instruments defaced
And great souls, at one stroke
May do and doat

Yes, call me by my pet name! let me hear
The name I used to run at, when a child
From innocent play, and leave
The cowslips piled
To glance up in some face that proved me dear
With the look of it's eyes i miss the clear
Fond voices which, being drawn and reconciled
Into the music of Heaven’s undefiled
Call me no longer silence on the bier
While I call God call God! So let thy mouth
Be heir to those who are now exanimate
Gather the north flowers to
Complete the south
And catch the early love up in the late
Yes, call me by that name, and I, in truth
With the same heart, will answer and not wait

With the same heart, I said, I’ll answer thee
As those, when thou shalt call me by my name
Lo, the vain promise! is the same, the same
Perplexed and ruffled by life’s strategy?
When called before, I told how hastily
I dropped my flowers or brake
Off from a game
To run and answer with the smile that came
At play last moment, and went on with me
Through my obedience when I answer now
I drop a grave thought, break from solitude
Yet still my heart goes to thee ponder how
Not as to a single good, but all my good!
Lay thy hand on it, best one, and allow
That no child’s foot could run
Fast as this blood

If I leave all for thee, wilt thou exchange
And be all to me? Shall I never miss
Home talk and blessing and the common kiss
That comes to each in turn
Nor count it strange
When I look up, to drop on a new range
Of walls and floors, another home than this?
Nay, wilt thou fill that place by me which is
Filled by dead eyes too
Tender to know change?
That’s hardest if to conquer love, has tried
To conquer grief, tries more
As all things prove
For grief indeed is love and grief beside
Alas, I have grieved so I am hard to love
Yet love me wilt thou? Open thine heart wide
And fold within the wet wings of thy dove

When we met first and loved, I did not build
Upon the event with marble could it mean
To last, a love set pendulous between
Sorrow and sorrow? Nay, I rather thrilled
Distrusting every light that seemed to gild
The onward path, and feared to overlean
A finger even and, though I have grown serene
And strong since then
I think that God has willed
A still renewable fear o love, O troth
Lest these enclaspèd hands should never hold
This mutual kiss drop down between us both
As an unowned thing, once the lips being cold
And Love, be false! if he, to keep one oath
Must lose one joy
By his life’s star foretold

Pardon, oh, pardon, that my soul should make
Of all that strong divineness which I know
For thine and thee, an image only so
Formed of the sand
And fit to shift and break
It is that distant years which did not take
Thy sovranty, recoiling with a blow
Have forced my swimming brain to undergo
Their doubt and dread, and blindly to forsake
Thy purity of likeness and distort
Thy worthiest love to
A worthless counterfeit:
As if a shipwrecked Pagan, safe in port
His guardian sea-god to commemorate
Should set a sculptured porpoise
Gills a-snort
And vibrant tail, within the temple-gate

First time he kissed me, he but only kissed
The fingers of this hand wherewith I write
And ever since, it grew more clean and white
Slow to world-greetings, quick with
It's "Oh, list, "
When the angels speak a ring of amethyst
I could not wear here, plainer to my sight
Than that first kiss the
Second passed in height
The first, and sought the
Forehead, and half missed
Half falling on the hair o beyond meed!
That was the chrism of love
Which love’s own crown
With sanctifying sweetness, did precede
The third upon my lips was folded down
In perfect, purple state since when, indeed
I have been proud and said, "My love, my own"

Because thou hast the power
And own’st the grace
To look through and behind this mask of me
(Against which years have
Beat thus blanchingly
With their rains) , and behold
My soul’s true face
The dim and weary witness of life’s race
Because thou hast the faith and love to see
Through that same soul’s
Distracting lethargy
The patient angel waiting for a place
In the new Heavens, because nor sin nor woe
Nor God’s infliction, nor
Death’s neighbourhood
Nor all which others viewing, turn to go
Nor all which makes me
Tired of all, self-viewed
Nothing repels thee, dearest, teach me so
To pour out gratitude, as thou dost, good!

Oh, yes! they love through all
This world of ours!
I will not gainsay love, called love forsooth
I have heard love talked in my early youth
And since
Not so long back but that the flowers
Then gathered
Smell still mussulmans and Giaours
Throw kerchiefs at a smile, and have no ruth
For any weeping polypheme’s white tooth
Slips on the nut if, after frequent showers
The shell is over-smooth, and not so much
Will turn the thing called love
Aside to hate
Or else to oblivion but thou art not such
A lover, my Belovèd! thou canst wait
Through sorrow and sickness, to
Bring souls to touch
And think it soon when others cry "Too late"

I thank all who have loved
Me in their hearts
With thanks and love from mine
Deep thanks to all
Who paused a little near the prison-wall
To hear my music in it's louder parts
Ere they went onward, each one to the mart’s
Or temple’s occupation, beyond call
But thou, who, in my voice’s sink and fall
When the sob took it, thy divinest Art’s
Own instrument didst drop down at thy foot
To hearken what I said between my tears
Instruct me how to thank thee! Oh, to shoot
My soul’s full meaning into future years
That they should lend it utterance
And salute
Love that endures, from Life that disappears!

"My future will not copy fair my past"
I wrote that once and thinking at my side
My ministering life-angel justified
The word by his appealing look upcast
To the white throne of God, I turned at last
And there, instead, saw thee, not unallied
To angels in thy soul! Then I, long tried
By natural ills, received the comfort fast
While budding, at thy sight
My pilgrim’s staff
Gave out green leaves with
Morning dews impearled
I seek no copy now of life’s first half:
Leave here the pages with long musing curled
And write me new my future’s epigraph
New angel mine, unhoped for in the world!

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways
I love thee to the depth
And breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace
I love thee to the level of everyday’s
Most quiet need, by sun and candlelight
I love thee freely, as men strive for Right
I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise
I love thee with the passion put to use
In my old griefs
And with my childhood’s faith
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints, I love
Thee with the breath
Smiles, tears, of all my life!
And, if God choose
I shall but love thee better after death

Belovèd, thou hast brought me many flowers
Plucked in the garden, all the summer through
And winter, and it seemed as if they grew
In this close room
Nor missed the sun and showers
So, in the like name of that love of ours
Take back these thoughts which
Here unfolded too
And which on warm and cold days I withdrew
From my heart’s ground indeed
Those beds and bowers
Be overgrown with bitter weeds and rue
And wait thy weeding yet here’s eglantine
Here’s ivy! take them, as I used to do
Thy flowers
And keep them where they shall not pine
Instruct thine eyes to keep
Their colours true
And tell thy soul their roots
Are left in mine