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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/2002-0.txt b/2002-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..dfc7f6d --- /dev/null +++ b/2002-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,1397 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, Sonnets from the Portuguese, by Elizabeth +Barrett Browning + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most +other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions +whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of +the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at +www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have +to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. + + + + +Title: Sonnets from the Portuguese + + +Author: Elizabeth Barrett Browning + + + +Release Date: January 13, 2015 [eBook #2002] +[This file was first posted on April 20, 1999] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SONNETS FROM THE PORTUGUESE*** + + +Transcribed from the 1906 Caradoc Press edition by David Price, email +ccx074@pglaf.org + + [Picture: Book cover] + + + + + + SONNETS FROM THE + PORTUGUESE + + + * * * * * + + BY + ELIZABETH + BARRETT BROWNING + + * * * * * + + [Picture: Decorative graphic] + + THE CARADOC PRESS BEDFORD PARK + CHISWICK LONDON MDCCCCVI + + + + +INDEX OF FIRST LINES + + I I thought once how Theocritus had sung + II But only three in all God’s universe + III Unlike are we, unlike, O princely Heart! + IV Thou hast thy calling to some palace-floor + V I lift my heavy heart up solemnly + VI Go from me. Yet I feel that I shall stand + VII The face of all the world is changed, I think + VIII What can I give thee back, O liberal + IX Can it be right to give what I can give? + X Yet, love, mere love, is beautiful indeed + XI And therefore if to love can be desert + XII Indeed this very love which is my boast + XIII And wilt thou have me fashion into speech + XIV If thou must love me, let it be for nought + XV Accuse me not, beseech thee, that I wear + XVI And yet, because thou overcomest so + XVII My poet thou canst touch on all the notes + XVIII I never gave a lock of hair away + XIX The soul’s Rialto hath its merchandize + XX Beloved, my beloved, when I think + XXI Say over again, and yet once over again + XXII When our two souls stand up erect and strong + XXIII Is it indeed so? If I lay here dead + XXIV Let the world’s sharpness like a clasping knife + XXV A heavy heart, Beloved, have I borne + XXVI I lived with visions for my company + XXVII My own Beloved, who hast lifted me + XXVIII My letters! all dead paper, mute and white! + XXIX I think of thee!—my thoughts do twine and bud + XXX I see thine image through my tears to-night + XXXI Thou comest! all is said without a word + XXXII The first time that the sun rose on thine oath + XXXIII Yes, call me by my pet-name! let me hear + XXXIV With the same heart, I said, I’ll answer thee + XXXV If I leave all for thee, wilt thou exchange + XXXVI When we met first and loved, I did not build + XXXVII Pardon, oh, pardon, that my soul should make + XXXVIII First time he kissed me, he but only kissed + XXXIX Because thou hast the power and own’st the grace + XL Oh, yes! they love through all this world of ours! + XLI I thank all who have loved me in their hearts + XLII My future will not copy fair my past + XLIII How do I love thee? Let me count the ways + XLIV Beloved, thou hast brought me many flowers + + + + +I + + + 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.” + + + + +II + + + 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 death-weights, 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. + + + + +III + + + 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. + + + + +IV + + + 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. + + + + +V + + + I lift my heavy heart up solemnly, + As once Electra her sepulchral urn, + And, looking in thine eyes, I over-turn + 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 Belovëd, will not shield thee so, + That none of all the fires shall scorch and shred + The hair beneath. Stand further off then! go! + + + + +VI + + + 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 its own grapes. And when I sue + God for myself, He hears that name of thine, + And sees within my eyes the tears of two. + + + + +VII + + + 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 its 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. + + + + +VIII + + + 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. + + + + +IX + + + 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. + + + + +X + + + 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 itself, and show + How that great work of Love enhances Nature’s. + + + + +XI + + + 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 Belovëd, 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. + + + + +XII + + + 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. + + + + +XIII + + + 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 spirits 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 its grief. + + + + +XIV + + + 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, Belovëd, 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 may’st love on, through love’s eternity. + + + + +XV + + + 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 sits and gazes from above, + Over the rivers to the bitter sea. + + + + +XVI + + + 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, Belovëd, 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! + + + + +XVII + + + 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. + + + + +XVIII + + + 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. + + + + +XIX + + + The soul’s Rialto hath its merchandize; + 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, Belovëd, 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. + + + + +XX + + + Belovëd, my Belovëd, 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. + + + + +XXI + + + 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. + Belovëd, 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. + + + + +XXII + + + 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 curvëd 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, Belovëd,—where the unfit + Contrarious moods of men recoil away + And isolate pure spirits, and permit + A place to stand and love in for a day, + With darkness and the death-hour rounding it. + + + + +XXIII + + + 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 Belovëd, 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! + + + + +XXIV + + + Let the world’s sharpness like a clasping knife + Shut in upon itself 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. + + + + +XXV + + + A heavy heart, Belovëd, 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 its 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 its own nature does precipitate, + While thine doth close above it, mediating + Betwixt the stars and the unaccomplished fate. + + + + +XXVI + + + 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, + Belovëd, 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. + + + + +XXVII + + + My own Belovëd, 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. + + + + +XXVIII + + + 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 its 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! + + + + +XXIX + + + 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. + + + + +XXX + + + I see thine image through my tears to-night, + And yet to-day I saw thee smiling. How + Refer the cause?—Belovëd, 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. + Belovëd, 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? + + + + +XXXI + + + 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 dove-like 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. + + + + +XXXII + + + 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. + + + + +XXXIII + + + 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 plied, + To glance up in some face that proved me dear + With the look of its 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. + + + + +XXXIV + + + 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. + + + + +XXXV + + + 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 thy heart wide, + And fold within, the wet wings of thy dove. + + + + +XXXVI + + + 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 enclaspëd 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. + + + + +XXXVII + + + 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. + + + + +XXXVIII + + + 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 its “O, 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.” + + + + +XXXIX + + + 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! + + + + +XL + + + 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 Belovëd! thou canst wait + Through sorrow and sickness, to bring souls to touch, + And think it soon when others cry “Too late.” + + + + +XLI + + + 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 its 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 harken 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! + + + + +XLII + + + 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! + + + + +XLIII + + + 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. + + + + +XLIV + + + Belovëd, 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. + + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SONNETS FROM THE PORTUGUESE*** + + +******* This file should be named 2002-0.txt or 2002-0.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/0/0/2002 + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will +be renamed. + +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, +so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United +States without permission and without paying copyright +royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of +the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at +www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have +to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. + + + + +Title: Sonnets from the Portuguese + + +Author: Elizabeth Barrett Browning + + + +Release Date: January 13, 2015 [eBook #2002] +[This file was first posted on April 20, 1999] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SONNETS FROM THE PORTUGUESE*** +</pre> +<p>Transcribed from the 1906 Caradoc Press edition by David +Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/coverb.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Book cover" +title= +"Book cover" + src="images/covers.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<h1>SONNETS FROM THE<br /> +PORTUGUESE</h1> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p style="text-align: center">BY<br /> +ELIZABETH<br /> +BARRETT BROWNING</p> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/tpb.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Decorative graphic" +title= +"Decorative graphic" + src="images/tps.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p style="text-align: center">THE CARADOC PRESS BEDFORD PARK<br +/> +CHISWICK +LONDON +MDCCCCVI</p> +<h2>INDEX OF FIRST LINES</h2> +<table> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right">I</p> +</td> +<td><p>I thought once how Theocritus had sung</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right">II</p> +</td> +<td><p>But only three in all God’s universe</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right">III</p> +</td> +<td><p>Unlike are we, unlike, O princely Heart!</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right">IV</p> +</td> +<td><p>Thou hast thy calling to some palace-floor</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right">V</p> +</td> +<td><p>I lift my heavy heart up solemnly</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right">VI</p> +</td> +<td><p>Go from me. Yet I feel that I shall stand</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right">VII</p> +</td> +<td><p>The face of all the world is changed, I think</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right">VIII</p> +</td> +<td><p>What can I give thee back, O liberal</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right">IX</p> +</td> +<td><p>Can it be right to give what I can give?</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right">X</p> +</td> +<td><p>Yet, love, mere love, is beautiful indeed</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right">XI</p> +</td> +<td><p>And therefore if to love can be desert</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right">XII</p> +</td> +<td><p>Indeed this very love which is my boast</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right">XIII</p> +</td> +<td><p>And wilt thou have me fashion into speech</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right">XIV</p> +</td> +<td><p>If thou must love me, let it be for nought</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right">XV</p> +</td> +<td><p>Accuse me not, beseech thee, that I wear</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right">XVI</p> +</td> +<td><p>And yet, because thou overcomest so</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right">XVII</p> +</td> +<td><p>My poet thou canst touch on all the notes</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right">XVIII</p> +</td> +<td><p>I never gave a lock of hair away</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right">XIX</p> +</td> +<td><p>The soul’s Rialto hath its merchandize</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right">XX</p> +</td> +<td><p>Beloved, my beloved, when I think</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right">XXI</p> +</td> +<td><p>Say over again, and yet once over again</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right">XXII</p> +</td> +<td><p>When our two souls stand up erect and strong</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right">XXIII</p> +</td> +<td><p>Is it indeed so? If I lay here dead</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right">XXIV</p> +</td> +<td><p>Let the world’s sharpness like a clasping knife</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right">XXV</p> +</td> +<td><p>A heavy heart, Beloved, have I borne</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right">XXVI</p> +</td> +<td><p>I lived with visions for my company</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right">XXVII</p> +</td> +<td><p>My own Beloved, who hast lifted me</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right">XXVIII</p> +</td> +<td><p>My letters! all dead paper, mute and white!</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right">XXIX</p> +</td> +<td><p>I think of thee!—my thoughts do twine and bud</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right">XXX</p> +</td> +<td><p>I see thine image through my tears to-night</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right">XXXI</p> +</td> +<td><p>Thou comest! all is said without a word</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right">XXXII</p> +</td> +<td><p>The first time that the sun rose on thine oath</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right">XXXIII</p> +</td> +<td><p>Yes, call me by my pet-name! let me hear</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right">XXXIV</p> +</td> +<td><p>With the same heart, I said, I’ll answer thee</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right">XXXV</p> +</td> +<td><p>If I leave all for thee, wilt thou exchange</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right">XXXVI</p> +</td> +<td><p>When we met first and loved, I did not build</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right">XXXVII</p> +</td> +<td><p>Pardon, oh, pardon, that my soul should make</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right">XXXVIII</p> +</td> +<td><p>First time he kissed me, he but only kissed</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right">XXXIX</p> +</td> +<td><p>Because thou hast the power and own’st the grace</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right">XL</p> +</td> +<td><p>Oh, yes! they love through all this world of ours!</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right">XLI</p> +</td> +<td><p>I thank all who have loved me in their hearts</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right">XLII</p> +</td> +<td><p>My future will not copy fair my past</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right">XLIII</p> +</td> +<td><p>How do I love thee? Let me count the ways</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right">XLIV</p> +</td> +<td><p>Beloved, thou hast brought me many flowers</p> +</td> +</tr> +</table> +<h2>I</h2> +<p class="poetry">I thought once how Theocritus had sung<br /> +Of the sweet years, the dear and wished-for years,<br /> +Who each one in a gracious hand appears<br /> +To bear a gift for mortals, old or young:<br /> +And, as I mused it in his antique tongue,<br /> +I saw, in gradual vision through my tears,<br /> +The sweet, sad years, the melancholy years,<br /> +Those of my own life, who by turns had flung<br /> +A shadow across me. Straightway I was ’ware,<br /> +So weeping, how a mystic Shape did move<br /> +Behind me, and drew me backward by the hair;<br /> +And a voice said in mastery, while I strove,—<br /> +“Guess now who holds +thee!”—“Death,” I said, But, there,<br /> +The silver answer rang, “Not Death, but Love.”</p> +<h2>II</h2> +<p class="poetry">But only three in all God’s universe<br +/> +Have heard this word thou hast said,—Himself, beside<br /> +Thee speaking, and me listening! and replied<br /> +One of us . . . that was God, . . . and laid the curse<br /> +So darkly on my eyelids, as to amerce<br /> +My sight from seeing thee,—that if I had died,<br /> +The death-weights, placed there, would have signified<br /> +Less absolute exclusion. “Nay” is worse<br /> +From God than from all others, O my friend!<br /> +Men could not part us with their worldly jars,<br /> +Nor the seas change us, nor the tempests bend;<br /> +Our hands would touch for all the mountain-bars:<br /> +And, heaven being rolled between us at the end,<br /> +We should but vow the faster for the stars.</p> +<h2>III</h2> +<p class="poetry">Unlike are we, unlike, O princely Heart!<br /> +Unlike our uses and our destinies.<br /> +Our ministering two angels look surprise<br /> +On one another, as they strike athwart<br /> +Their wings in passing. Thou, bethink thee, art<br /> +A guest for queens to social pageantries,<br /> +With gages from a hundred brighter eyes<br /> +Than tears even can make mine, to play thy part<br /> +Of chief musician. What hast thou to do<br /> +With looking from the lattice-lights at me,<br /> +A poor, tired, wandering singer, singing through<br /> +The dark, and leaning up a cypress tree?<br /> +The chrism is on thine head,—on mine, the dew,—<br /> +And Death must dig the level where these agree.</p> +<h2>IV</h2> +<p class="poetry">Thou hast thy calling to some palace-floor,<br +/> +Most gracious singer of high poems! where<br /> +The dancers will break footing, from the care<br /> +Of watching up thy pregnant lips for more.<br /> +And dost thou lift this house’s latch too poor<br /> +For hand of thine? and canst thou think and bear<br /> +To let thy music drop here unaware<br /> +In folds of golden fulness at my door?<br /> +Look up and see the casement broken in,<br /> +The bats and owlets builders in the roof!<br /> +My cricket chirps against thy mandolin.<br /> +Hush, call no echo up in further proof<br /> +Of desolation! there’s a voice within<br /> +That weeps . . . as thou must sing . . . alone, aloof.</p> +<h2>V</h2> +<p class="poetry">I lift my heavy heart up solemnly,<br /> +As once Electra her sepulchral urn,<br /> +And, looking in thine eyes, I over-turn<br /> +The ashes at thy feet. Behold and see<br /> +What a great heap of grief lay hid in me,<br /> +And how the red wild sparkles dimly burn<br /> +Through the ashen greyness. If thy foot in scorn<br /> +Could tread them out to darkness utterly,<br /> +It might be well perhaps. But if instead<br /> +Thou wait beside me for the wind to blow<br /> +The grey dust up, . . . those laurels on thine head,<br /> +O my Belovëd, will not shield thee so,<br /> +That none of all the fires shall scorch and shred<br /> +The hair beneath. Stand further off then! go!</p> +<h2>VI</h2> +<p class="poetry">Go from me. Yet I feel that I shall +stand<br /> +Henceforward in thy shadow. Nevermore<br /> +Alone upon the threshold of my door<br /> +Of individual life, I shall command<br /> +The uses of my soul, nor lift my hand<br /> +Serenely in the sunshine as before,<br /> +Without the sense of that which I forbore—<br /> +Thy touch upon the palm. The widest land<br /> +Doom takes to part us, leaves thy heart in mine<br /> +With pulses that beat double. What I do<br /> +And what I dream include thee, as the wine<br /> +Must taste of its own grapes. And when I sue<br /> +God for myself, He hears that name of thine,<br /> +And sees within my eyes the tears of two.</p> +<h2>VII</h2> +<p class="poetry">The face of all the world is changed, I +think,<br /> +Since first I heard the footsteps of thy soul<br /> +Move still, oh, still, beside me, as they stole<br /> +Betwixt me and the dreadful outer brink<br /> +Of obvious death, where I, who thought to sink,<br /> +Was caught up into love, and taught the whole<br /> +Of life in a new rhythm. The cup of dole<br /> +God gave for baptism, I am fain to drink,<br /> +And praise its sweetness, Sweet, with thee anear.<br /> +The names of country, heaven, are changed away<br /> +For where thou art or shalt be, there or here;<br /> +And this . . . this lute and song . . . loved yesterday,<br /> +(The singing angels know) are only dear<br /> +Because thy name moves right in what they say.</p> +<h2>VIII</h2> +<p class="poetry">What can I give thee back, O liberal<br /> +And princely giver, who hast brought the gold<br /> +And purple of thine heart, unstained, untold,<br /> +And laid them on the outside of the wall<br /> +For such as I to take or leave withal,<br /> +In unexpected largesse? am I cold,<br /> +Ungrateful, that for these most manifold<br /> +High gifts, I render nothing back at all?<br /> +Not so; not cold,—but very poor instead.<br /> +Ask God who knows. For frequent tears have run<br /> +The colours from my life, and left so dead<br /> +And pale a stuff, it were not fitly done<br /> +To give the same as pillow to thy head.<br /> +Go farther! let it serve to trample on.</p> +<h2>IX</h2> +<p class="poetry">Can it be right to give what I can give?<br /> +To let thee sit beneath the fall of tears<br /> +As salt as mine, and hear the sighing years<br /> +Re-sighing on my lips renunciative<br /> +Through those infrequent smiles which fail to live<br /> +For all thy adjurations? O my fears,<br /> +That this can scarce be right! We are not peers<br /> +So to be lovers; and I own, and grieve,<br /> +That givers of such gifts as mine are, must<br /> +Be counted with the ungenerous. Out, alas!<br /> +I will not soil thy purple with my dust,<br /> +Nor breathe my poison on thy Venice-glass,<br /> +Nor give thee any love—which were unjust.<br /> +Beloved, I only love thee! let it pass.</p> +<h2>X</h2> +<p class="poetry">Yet, love, mere love, is beautiful indeed<br /> +And worthy of acceptation. Fire is bright,<br /> +Let temple burn, or flax; an equal light<br /> +Leaps in the flame from cedar-plank or weed:<br /> +And love is fire. And when I say at need<br /> +I love thee . . . mark! . . . I love thee—in thy sight<br +/> +I stand transfigured, glorified aright,<br /> +With conscience of the new rays that proceed<br /> +Out of my face toward thine. There’s nothing low<br +/> +In love, when love the lowest: meanest creatures<br /> +Who love God, God accepts while loving so.<br /> +And what I feel, across the inferior features<br /> +Of what I am, doth flash itself, and show<br /> +How that great work of Love enhances Nature’s.</p> +<h2>XI</h2> +<p class="poetry">And therefore if to love can be desert,<br /> +I am not all unworthy. Cheeks as pale<br /> +As these you see, and trembling knees that fail<br /> +To bear the burden of a heavy heart,—<br /> +This weary minstrel-life that once was girt<br /> +To climb Aornus, and can scarce avail<br /> +To pipe now ’gainst the valley nightingale<br /> +A melancholy music,—why advert<br /> +To these things? O Belovëd, it is plain<br /> +I am not of thy worth nor for thy place!<br /> +And yet, because I love thee, I obtain<br /> +From that same love this vindicating grace<br /> +To live on still in love, and yet in vain,—<br /> +To bless thee, yet renounce thee to thy face.</p> +<h2>XII</h2> +<p class="poetry">Indeed this very love which is my boast,<br /> +And which, when rising up from breast to brow,<br /> +Doth crown me with a ruby large enow<br /> +To draw men’s eyes and prove the inner cost,—<br /> +This love even, all my worth, to the uttermost,<br /> +I should not love withal, unless that thou<br /> +Hadst set me an example, shown me how,<br /> +When first thine earnest eyes with mine were crossed,<br /> +And love called love. And thus, I cannot speak<br /> +Of love even, as a good thing of my own:<br /> +Thy soul hath snatched up mine all faint and weak,<br /> +And placed it by thee on a golden throne,—<br /> +And that I love (O soul, we must be meek!)<br /> +Is by thee only, whom I love alone.</p> +<h2>XIII</h2> +<p class="poetry">And wilt thou have me fashion into speech<br /> +The love I bear thee, finding words enough,<br /> +And hold the torch out, while the winds are rough,<br /> +Between our faces, to cast light on each?—<br /> +I drop it at thy feet. I cannot teach<br /> +My hand to hold my spirits so far off<br /> +From myself—me—that I should bring thee proof<br /> +In words, of love hid in me out of reach.<br /> +Nay, let the silence of my womanhood<br /> +Commend my woman-love to thy belief,—<br /> +Seeing that I stand unwon, however wooed,<br /> +And rend the garment of my life, in brief,<br /> +By a most dauntless, voiceless fortitude,<br /> +Lest one touch of this heart convey its grief.</p> +<h2>XIV</h2> +<p class="poetry">If thou must love me, let it be for nought<br +/> +Except for love’s sake only. Do not say<br /> +“I love her for her smile—her look—her way<br +/> +Of speaking gently,—for a trick of thought<br /> +That falls in well with mine, and certes brought<br /> +A sense of pleasant ease on such a day”—<br /> +For these things in themselves, Belovëd, may<br /> +Be changed, or change for thee,—and love, so wrought,<br /> +May be unwrought so. Neither love me for<br /> +Thine own dear pity’s wiping my cheeks dry,—<br /> +A creature might forget to weep, who bore<br /> +Thy comfort long, and lose thy love thereby!<br /> +But love me for love’s sake, that evermore<br /> +Thou may’st love on, through love’s eternity.</p> +<h2>XV</h2> +<p class="poetry">Accuse me not, beseech thee, that I wear<br /> +Too calm and sad a face in front of thine;<br /> +For we two look two ways, and cannot shine<br /> +With the same sunlight on our brow and hair.<br /> +On me thou lookest with no doubting care,<br /> +As on a bee shut in a crystalline;<br /> +Since sorrow hath shut me safe in love’s divine,<br /> +And to spread wing and fly in the outer air<br /> +Were most impossible failure, if I strove<br /> +To fail so. But I look on thee—on thee—<br /> +Beholding, besides love, the end of love,<br /> +Hearing oblivion beyond memory;<br /> +As one who sits and gazes from above,<br /> +Over the rivers to the bitter sea.</p> +<h2>XVI</h2> +<p class="poetry">And yet, because thou overcomest so,<br /> +Because thou art more noble and like a king,<br /> +Thou canst prevail against my fears and fling<br /> +Thy purple round me, till my heart shall grow<br /> +Too close against thine heart henceforth to know<br /> +How it shook when alone. Why, conquering<br /> +May prove as lordly and complete a thing<br /> +In lifting upward, as in crushing low!<br /> +And as a vanquished soldier yields his sword<br /> +To one who lifts him from the bloody earth,<br /> +Even so, Belovëd, I at last record,<br /> +Here ends my strife. If thou invite me forth,<br /> +I rise above abasement at the word.<br /> +Make thy love larger to enlarge my worth!</p> +<h2>XVII</h2> +<p class="poetry">My poet, thou canst touch on all the notes<br +/> +God set between His After and Before,<br /> +And strike up and strike off the general roar<br /> +Of the rushing worlds a melody that floats<br /> +In a serene air purely. Antidotes<br /> +Of medicated music, answering for<br /> +Mankind’s forlornest uses, thou canst pour<br /> +From thence into their ears. God’s will devotes<br /> +Thine to such ends, and mine to wait on thine.<br /> +How, Dearest, wilt thou have me for most use?<br /> +A hope, to sing by gladly? or a fine<br /> +Sad memory, with thy songs to interfuse?<br /> +A shade, in which to sing—of palm or pine?<br /> +A grave, on which to rest from singing? Choose.</p> +<h2>XVIII</h2> +<p class="poetry">I never gave a lock of hair away<br /> +To a man, Dearest, except this to thee,<br /> +Which now upon my fingers thoughtfully<br /> +I ring out to the full brown length and say<br /> +“Take it.” My day of youth went yesterday;<br +/> +My hair no longer bounds to my foot’s glee,<br /> +Nor plant I it from rose- or myrtle-tree,<br /> +As girls do, any more: it only may<br /> +Now shade on two pale cheeks the mark of tears,<br /> +Taught drooping from the head that hangs aside<br /> +Through sorrow’s trick. I thought the +funeral-shears<br /> +Would take this first, but Love is justified,—<br /> +Take it thou,—finding pure, from all those years,<br /> +The kiss my mother left here when she died.</p> +<h2>XIX</h2> +<p class="poetry">The soul’s Rialto hath its +merchandize;<br /> +I barter curl for curl upon that mart,<br /> +And from my poet’s forehead to my heart<br /> +Receive this lock which outweighs argosies,—<br /> +As purply black, as erst to Pindar’s eyes<br /> +The dim purpureal tresses gloomed athwart<br /> +The nine white Muse-brows. For this counterpart, . . .<br +/> +The bay crown’s shade, Belovëd, I surmise,<br /> +Still lingers on thy curl, it is so black!<br /> +Thus, with a fillet of smooth-kissing breath,<br /> +I tie the shadows safe from gliding back,<br /> +And lay the gift where nothing hindereth;<br /> +Here on my heart, as on thy brow, to lack<br /> +No natural heat till mine grows cold in death.</p> +<h2>XX</h2> +<p class="poetry">Belovëd, my Belovëd, when I think<br +/> +That thou wast in the world a year ago,<br /> +What time I sat alone here in the snow<br /> +And saw no footprint, heard the silence sink<br /> +No moment at thy voice, but, link by link,<br /> +Went counting all my chains as if that so<br /> +They never could fall off at any blow<br /> +Struck by thy possible hand,—why, thus I drink<br /> +Of life’s great cup of wonder! Wonderful,<br /> +Never to feel thee thrill the day or night<br /> +With personal act or speech,—nor ever cull<br /> +Some prescience of thee with the blossoms white<br /> +Thou sawest growing! Atheists are as dull,<br /> +Who cannot guess God’s presence out of sight.</p> +<h2>XXI</h2> +<p class="poetry">Say over again, and yet once over again,<br /> +That thou dost love me. Though the word repeated<br /> +Should seem a “cuckoo-song,” as thou dost treat +it,<br /> +Remember, never to the hill or plain,<br /> +Valley and wood, without her cuckoo-strain<br /> +Comes the fresh Spring in all her green completed.<br /> +Belovëd, I, amid the darkness greeted<br /> +By a doubtful spirit-voice, in that doubt’s pain<br /> +Cry, “Speak once more—thou lovest!” Who +can fear<br /> +Too many stars, though each in heaven shall roll,<br /> +Too many flowers, though each shall crown the year?<br /> +Say thou dost love me, love me, love me—toll<br /> +The silver iterance!—only minding, Dear,<br /> +To love me also in silence with thy soul.</p> +<h2>XXII</h2> +<p class="poetry">When our two souls stand up erect and +strong,<br /> +Face to face, silent, drawing nigh and nigher,<br /> +Until the lengthening wings break into fire<br /> +At either curvëd point,—what bitter wrong<br /> +Can the earth do to us, that we should not long<br /> +Be here contented? Think! In mounting higher,<br /> +The angels would press on us and aspire<br /> +To drop some golden orb of perfect song<br /> +Into our deep, dear silence. Let us stay<br /> +Rather on earth, Belovëd,—where the unfit<br /> +Contrarious moods of men recoil away<br /> +And isolate pure spirits, and permit<br /> +A place to stand and love in for a day,<br /> +With darkness and the death-hour rounding it.</p> +<h2>XXIII</h2> +<p class="poetry">Is it indeed so? If I lay here dead,<br +/> +Wouldst thou miss any life in losing mine?<br /> +And would the sun for thee more coldly shine<br /> +Because of grave-damps falling round my head?<br /> +I marvelled, my Belovëd, when I read<br /> +Thy thought so in the letter. I am thine—<br /> +But . . . so much to thee? Can I pour thy wine<br /> +While my hands tremble? Then my soul, instead<br /> +Of dreams of death, resumes life’s lower range.<br /> +Then, love me, Love! look on me—breathe on me!<br /> +As brighter ladies do not count it strange,<br /> +For love, to give up acres and degree,<br /> +I yield the grave for thy sake, and exchange<br /> +My near sweet view of heaven, for earth with thee!</p> +<h2>XXIV</h2> +<p class="poetry">Let the world’s sharpness like a clasping +knife<br /> +Shut in upon itself and do no harm<br /> +In this close hand of Love, now soft and warm,<br /> +And let us hear no sound of human strife<br /> +After the click of the shutting. Life to life—<br /> +I lean upon thee, Dear, without alarm,<br /> +And feel as safe as guarded by a charm<br /> +Against the stab of worldlings, who if rife<br /> +Are weak to injure. Very whitely still<br /> +The lilies of our lives may reassure<br /> +Their blossoms from their roots, accessible<br /> +Alone to heavenly dews that drop not fewer;<br /> +Growing straight, out of man’s reach, on the hill.<br /> +God only, who made us rich, can make us poor.</p> +<h2>XXV</h2> +<p class="poetry">A heavy heart, Belovëd, have I borne<br /> +From year to year until I saw thy face,<br /> +And sorrow after sorrow took the place<br /> +Of all those natural joys as lightly worn<br /> +As the stringed pearls, each lifted in its turn<br /> +By a beating heart at dance-time. Hopes apace<br /> +Were changed to long despairs, till God’s own grace<br /> +Could scarcely lift above the world forlorn<br /> +My heavy heart. Then thou didst bid me bring<br /> +And let it drop adown thy calmly great<br /> +Deep being! Fast it sinketh, as a thing<br /> +Which its own nature does precipitate,<br /> +While thine doth close above it, mediating<br /> +Betwixt the stars and the unaccomplished fate.</p> +<h2>XXVI</h2> +<p class="poetry">I lived with visions for my company<br /> +Instead of men and women, years ago,<br /> +And found them gentle mates, nor thought to know<br /> +A sweeter music than they played to me.<br /> +But soon their trailing purple was not free<br /> +Of this world’s dust, their lutes did silent grow,<br /> +And I myself grew faint and blind below<br /> +Their vanishing eyes. Then thou didst come—to be,<br +/> +Belovëd, what they seemed. Their shining fronts,<br /> +Their songs, their splendours, (better, yet the same,<br /> +As river-water hallowed into fonts)<br /> +Met in thee, and from out thee overcame<br /> +My soul with satisfaction of all wants:<br /> +Because God’s gifts put man’s best dreams to +shame.</p> +<h2>XXVII</h2> +<p class="poetry">My own Belovëd, who hast lifted me<br /> +From this drear flat of earth where I was thrown,<br /> +And, in betwixt the languid ringlets, blown<br /> +A life-breath, till the forehead hopefully<br /> +Shines out again, as all the angels see,<br /> +Before thy saving kiss! My own, my own,<br /> +Who camest to me when the world was gone,<br /> +And I who looked for only God, found thee!<br /> +I find thee; I am safe, and strong, and glad.<br /> +As one who stands in dewless asphodel,<br /> +Looks backward on the tedious time he had<br /> +In the upper life,—so I, with bosom-swell,<br /> +Make witness, here, between the good and bad,<br /> +That Love, as strong as Death, retrieves as well.</p> +<h2>XXVIII</h2> +<p class="poetry">My letters! all dead paper, mute and white!<br +/> +And yet they seem alive and quivering<br /> +Against my tremulous hands which loose the string<br /> +And let them drop down on my knee to-night.<br /> +This said,—he wished to have me in his sight<br /> +Once, as a friend: this fixed a day in spring<br /> +To come and touch my hand . . . a simple thing,<br /> +Yet I wept for it!—this, . . . the paper’s light . . +.<br /> +Said, Dear I love thee; and I sank and quailed<br /> +As if God’s future thundered on my past.<br /> +This said, I am thine—and so its ink has paled<br /> +With lying at my heart that beat too fast.<br /> +And this . . . O Love, thy words have ill availed<br /> +If, what this said, I dared repeat at last!</p> +<h2>XXIX</h2> +<p class="poetry">I think of thee!—my thoughts do twine and +bud<br /> +About thee, as wild vines, about a tree,<br /> +Put out broad leaves, and soon there’s nought to see<br /> +Except the straggling green which hides the wood.<br /> +Yet, O my palm-tree, be it understood<br /> +I will not have my thoughts instead of thee<br /> +Who art dearer, better! Rather, instantly<br /> +Renew thy presence; as a strong tree should,<br /> +Rustle thy boughs and set thy trunk all bare,<br /> +And let these bands of greenery which insphere thee,<br /> +Drop heavily down,—burst, shattered everywhere!<br /> +Because, in this deep joy to see and hear thee<br /> +And breathe within thy shadow a new air,<br /> +I do not think of thee—I am too near thee.</p> +<h2>XXX</h2> +<p class="poetry">I see thine image through my tears to-night,<br +/> +And yet to-day I saw thee smiling. How<br /> +Refer the cause?—Belovëd, is it thou<br /> +Or I, who makes me sad? The acolyte<br /> +Amid the chanted joy and thankful rite<br /> +May so fall flat, with pale insensate brow,<br /> +On the altar-stair. I hear thy voice and vow,<br /> +Perplexed, uncertain, since thou art out of sight,<br /> +As he, in his swooning ears, the choir’s amen.<br /> +Belovëd, dost thou love? or did I see all<br /> +The glory as I dreamed, and fainted when<br /> +Too vehement light dilated my ideal,<br /> +For my soul’s eyes? Will that light come again,<br /> +As now these tears come—falling hot and real?</p> +<h2>XXXI</h2> +<p class="poetry">Thou comest! all is said without a word.<br /> +I sit beneath thy looks, as children do<br /> +In the noon-sun, with souls that tremble through<br /> +Their happy eyelids from an unaverred<br /> +Yet prodigal inward joy. Behold, I erred<br /> +In that last doubt! and yet I cannot rue<br /> +The sin most, but the occasion—that we two<br /> +Should for a moment stand unministered<br /> +By a mutual presence. Ah, keep near and close,<br /> +Thou dove-like help! and when my fears would rise,<br /> +With thy broad heart serenely interpose:<br /> +Brood down with thy divine sufficiencies<br /> +These thoughts which tremble when bereft of those,<br /> +Like callow birds left desert to the skies.</p> +<h2>XXXII</h2> +<p class="poetry">The first time that the sun rose on thine +oath<br /> +To love me, I looked forward to the moon<br /> +To slacken all those bonds which seemed too soon<br /> +And quickly tied to make a lasting troth.<br /> +Quick-loving hearts, I thought, may quickly loathe;<br /> +And, looking on myself, I seemed not one<br /> +For such man’s love!—more like an out-of-tune<br /> +Worn viol, a good singer would be wroth<br /> +To spoil his song with, and which, snatched in haste,<br /> +Is laid down at the first ill-sounding note.<br /> +I did not wrong myself so, but I placed<br /> +A wrong on thee. For perfect strains may float<br /> +’Neath master-hands, from instruments defaced,—<br /> +And great souls, at one stroke, may do and doat.</p> +<h2>XXXIII</h2> +<p class="poetry">Yes, call me by my pet-name! let me hear<br /> +The name I used to run at, when a child,<br /> +From innocent play, and leave the cowslips plied,<br /> +To glance up in some face that proved me dear<br /> +With the look of its eyes. I miss the clear<br /> +Fond voices which, being drawn and reconciled<br /> +Into the music of Heaven’s undefiled,<br /> +Call me no longer. Silence on the bier,<br /> +While I call God—call God!—so let thy mouth<br /> +Be heir to those who are now exanimate.<br /> +Gather the north flowers to complete the south,<br /> +And catch the early love up in the late.<br /> +Yes, call me by that name,—and I, in truth,<br /> +With the same heart, will answer and not wait.</p> +<h2>XXXIV</h2> +<p class="poetry">With the same heart, I said, I’ll answer +thee<br /> +As those, when thou shalt call me by my name—<br /> +Lo, the vain promise! is the same, the same,<br /> +Perplexed and ruffled by life’s strategy?<br /> +When called before, I told how hastily<br /> +I dropped my flowers or brake off from a game.<br /> +To run and answer with the smile that came<br /> +At play last moment, and went on with me<br /> +Through my obedience. When I answer now,<br /> +I drop a grave thought, break from solitude;<br /> +Yet still my heart goes to thee—ponder how—<br /> +Not as to a single good, but all my good!<br /> +Lay thy hand on it, best one, and allow<br /> +That no child’s foot could run fast as this blood.</p> +<h2>XXXV</h2> +<p class="poetry">If I leave all for thee, wilt thou exchange<br +/> +And be all to me? Shall I never miss<br /> +Home-talk and blessing and the common kiss<br /> +That comes to each in turn, nor count it strange,<br /> +When I look up, to drop on a new range<br /> +Of walls and floors, another home than this?<br /> +Nay, wilt thou fill that place by me which is<br /> +Filled by dead eyes too tender to know change<br /> +That’s hardest. If to conquer love, has tried,<br /> +To conquer grief, tries more, as all things prove,<br /> +For grief indeed is love and grief beside.<br /> +Alas, I have grieved so I am hard to love.<br /> +Yet love me—wilt thou? Open thy heart wide,<br /> +And fold within, the wet wings of thy dove.</p> +<h2>XXXVI</h2> +<p class="poetry">When we met first and loved, I did not build<br +/> +Upon the event with marble. Could it mean<br /> +To last, a love set pendulous between<br /> +Sorrow and sorrow? Nay, I rather thrilled,<br /> +Distrusting every light that seemed to gild<br /> +The onward path, and feared to overlean<br /> +A finger even. And, though I have grown serene<br /> +And strong since then, I think that God has willed<br /> +A still renewable fear . . . O love, O troth . . .<br /> +Lest these enclaspëd hands should never hold,<br /> +This mutual kiss drop down between us both<br /> +As an unowned thing, once the lips being cold.<br /> +And Love, be false! if he, to keep one oath,<br /> +Must lose one joy, by his life’s star foretold.</p> +<h2>XXXVII</h2> +<p class="poetry">Pardon, oh, pardon, that my soul should make<br +/> +Of all that strong divineness which I know<br /> +For thine and thee, an image only so<br /> +Formed of the sand, and fit to shift and break.<br /> +It is that distant years which did not take<br /> +Thy sovranty, recoiling with a blow,<br /> +Have forced my swimming brain to undergo<br /> +Their doubt and dread, and blindly to forsake<br /> +Thy purity of likeness and distort<br /> +Thy worthiest love to a worthless counterfeit.<br /> +As if a shipwrecked Pagan, safe in port,<br /> +His guardian sea-god to commemorate,<br /> +Should set a sculptured porpoise, gills a-snort<br /> +And vibrant tail, within the temple-gate.</p> +<h2>XXXVIII</h2> +<p class="poetry">First time he kissed me, he but only kissed<br +/> +The fingers of this hand wherewith I write;<br /> +And ever since, it grew more clean and white.<br /> +Slow to world-greetings, quick with its “O, list,”<br +/> +When the angels speak. A ring of amethyst<br /> +I could not wear here, plainer to my sight,<br /> +Than that first kiss. The second passed in height<br /> +The first, and sought the forehead, and half missed,<br /> +Half falling on the hair. O beyond meed!<br /> +That was the chrism of love, which love’s own crown,<br /> +With sanctifying sweetness, did precede<br /> +The third upon my lips was folded down<br /> +In perfect, purple state; since when, indeed,<br /> +I have been proud and said, “My love, my own.”</p> +<h2>XXXIX</h2> +<p class="poetry">Because thou hast the power and own’st +the grace<br /> +To look through and behind this mask of me,<br /> +(Against which, years have beat thus blanchingly,<br /> +With their rains,) and behold my soul’s true face,<br /> +The dim and weary witness of life’s race,—<br /> +Because thou hast the faith and love to see,<br /> +Through that same soul’s distracting lethargy,<br /> +The patient angel waiting for a place<br /> +In the new Heavens,—because nor sin nor woe,<br /> +Nor God’s infliction, nor death’s neighbourhood,<br +/> +Nor all which others viewing, turn to go,<br /> +Nor all which makes me tired of all, self-viewed,—<br /> +Nothing repels thee, . . . Dearest, teach me so<br /> +To pour out gratitude, as thou dost, good!</p> +<h2>XL</h2> +<p class="poetry">Oh, yes! they love through all this world of +ours!<br /> +I will not gainsay love, called love forsooth:<br /> +I have heard love talked in my early youth,<br /> +And since, not so long back but that the flowers<br /> +Then gathered, smell still. Mussulmans and Giaours<br /> +Throw kerchiefs at a smile, and have no ruth<br /> +For any weeping. Polypheme’s white tooth<br /> +Slips on the nut if, after frequent showers,<br /> +The shell is over-smooth,—and not so much<br /> +Will turn the thing called love, aside to hate<br /> +Or else to oblivion. But thou art not such<br /> +A lover, my Belovëd! thou canst wait<br /> +Through sorrow and sickness, to bring souls to touch,<br /> +And think it soon when others cry “Too late.”</p> +<h2>XLI</h2> +<p class="poetry">I thank all who have loved me in their +hearts,<br /> +With thanks and love from mine. Deep thanks to all<br /> +Who paused a little near the prison-wall<br /> +To hear my music in its louder parts<br /> +Ere they went onward, each one to the mart’s<br /> +Or temple’s occupation, beyond call.<br /> +But thou, who, in my voice’s sink and fall<br /> +When the sob took it, thy divinest Art’s<br /> +Own instrument didst drop down at thy foot<br /> +To harken what I said between my tears, . . .<br /> +Instruct me how to thank thee! Oh, to shoot<br /> +My soul’s full meaning into future years,<br /> +That they should lend it utterance, and salute<br /> +Love that endures, from life that disappears!</p> +<h2>XLII</h2> +<p class="poetry">My future will not copy fair my past—<br +/> +I wrote that once; and thinking at my side<br /> +My ministering life-angel justified<br /> +The word by his appealing look upcast<br /> +To the white throne of God, I turned at last,<br /> +And there, instead, saw thee, not unallied<br /> +To angels in thy soul! Then I, long tried<br /> +By natural ills, received the comfort fast,<br /> +While budding, at thy sight, my pilgrim’s staff<br /> +Gave out green leaves with morning dews impearled.<br /> +I seek no copy now of life’s first half:<br /> +Leave here the pages with long musing curled,<br /> +And write me new my future’s epigraph,<br /> +New angel mine, unhoped for in the world!</p> +<h2>XLIII</h2> +<p class="poetry">How do I love thee? Let me count the +ways.<br /> +I love thee to the depth and breadth and height<br /> +My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight<br /> +For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.<br /> +I love thee to the level of everyday’s<br /> +Most quiet need, by sun and candlelight.<br /> +I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;<br /> +I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.<br /> +I love thee with the passion put to use<br /> +In my old griefs, and with my childhood’s faith.<br /> +I love thee with a love I seemed to lose<br /> +With my lost saints,—I love thee with the breath,<br /> +Smiles, tears, of all my life!—and, if God choose,<br /> +I shall but love thee better after death.</p> +<h2>XLIV</h2> +<p class="poetry">Belovëd, thou hast brought me many +flowers<br /> +Plucked in the garden, all the summer through,<br /> +And winter, and it seemed as if they grew<br /> +In this close room, nor missed the sun and showers.<br /> +So, in the like name of that love of ours,<br /> +Take back these thoughts which here unfolded too,<br /> +And which on warm and cold days I withdrew<br /> +From my heart’s ground. Indeed, those beds and +bowers<br /> +Be overgrown with bitter weeds and rue,<br /> +And wait thy weeding; yet here’s eglantine,<br /> +Here’s ivy!—take them, as I used to do<br /> +Thy flowers, and keep them where they shall not pine.<br /> +Instruct thine eyes to keep their colours true,<br /> +And tell thy soul, their roots are left in mine.</p> +<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SONNETS FROM THE PORTUGUESE***</p> +<pre> + + +***** This file should be named 2002-h.htm or 2002-h.zip****** + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/0/0/2002 + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will +be renamed. + +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, +so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United +States without permission and without paying copyright +royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Sonnets from the Portuguese + +Author: Browning, Elizabeth Barrett + +Release Date: September 14, 2004 [EBook #2002] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SONNETS FROM THE PORTUGUESE *** + + + + +Transcribed from the 1906 Caradoc Press edition by David Price, email +ccx074@coventry.ac.uk. + + + + + +SONNETS FROM THE PORTUGUESE + + +INDEX OF FIRST LINES + + +I I thought once how Theocritus had sung +II But only three in all God's universe +III Unlike are we, unlike, O princely Heart! +IV Thou hast thy calling to some palace-floor +V I lift my heavy heart up solemnly +VI Go from me. Yet I feel that I shall stand +VII The face of all the world is changed, I think +VIII What can I give thee back, O liberal +IX Can it be right to give what I can give? +X Yet, love, mere love, is beautiful indeed +XI And therefore if to love can be desert +XII Indeed this very love which is my boast +XIII And wilt thou have me fashion into speech +XIV If thou must love me, let it be for nought +XV Accuse me not, beseech thee, that I wear +XVI And yet, because thou overcomest so +XVII My poet thou canst touch on all the notes +XVIII I never gave a lock of hair away +XIX The soul's Rialto hath its merchandize +XX Beloved, my beloved, when I think +XXI Say over again, and yet once over again +XXII When our two souls stand up erect and strong +XXIII Is it indeed so? If I lay here dead +XXIV Let the world's sharpness like a clasping knife +XXV A heavy heart, Beloved, have I borne +XXVI I lived with visions for my company +XXVII My own Beloved, who hast lifted me +XXVIII My letters! all dead paper, mute and white! +XXIX I think of thee!--my thoughts do twine and bud +XXX I see thine image through my tears to-night +XXXI Thou comest! all is said without a word +XXXII The first time that the sun rose on thine oath +XXXIII Yes, call me by my pet-name! let me hear +XXXIV With the same heart, I said, I'll answer thee +XXXV If I leave all for thee, wilt thou exchange +XXXVI When we met first and loved, I did not build +XXXVII Pardon, oh, pardon, that my soul should make +XXXVIII First time he kissed me, he but only kissed +XXXIX Because thou hast the power and own'st the grace +XL Oh, yes! they love through all this world of ours! +XLI I thank all who have loved me in their hearts +XLII My future will not copy fair my past +XLIII How do I love thee? Let me count the ways +XLIV Beloved, thou hast brought me many flowers + + + + +I + + +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." + + + + +II + + +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 death-weights, 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. + + + + +III + + +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. + + + + +IV + + +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. + + + + +V + + +I lift my heavy heart up solemnly, +As once Electra her sepulchral urn, +And, looking in thine eyes, I over-turn +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 Beloved, will not shield thee so, +That none of all the fires shall scorch and shred +The hair beneath. Stand further off then! go! + + + + +VI + + +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 its own grapes. And when I sue +God for myself, He hears that name of thine, +And sees within my eyes the tears of two. + + + + +VII + + +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 its 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. + + + + +VIII + + +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. + + + + +IX + + +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. + + + + +X + + +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 itself, and show +How that great work of Love enhances Nature's. + + + + +XI + + +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 Beloved, 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. + + + + +XII + + +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. + + + + +XIII + + +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 spirits 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 its grief. + + + + +XIV + + +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, Beloved, 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 may'st love on, through love's eternity. + + + + +XV + + +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 sits and gazes from above, +Over the rivers to the bitter sea. + + + + +XVI + + +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, Beloved, 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! + + + + +XVII + + +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. + + + + +XVIII + + +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. + + + + +XIX + + +The soul's Rialto hath its merchandize; +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, Beloved, 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. + + + + +XX + + +Beloved, my Beloved, 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. + + + + +XXI + + +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. +Beloved, 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. + + + + +XXII + + +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 curved 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, Beloved,--where the unfit +Contrarious moods of men recoil away +And isolate pure spirits, and permit +A place to stand and love in for a day, +With darkness and the death-hour rounding it. + + + + +XXIII + + +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 Beloved, 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! + + + + +XXIV + + +Let the world's sharpness like a clasping knife +Shut in upon itself 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. + + + + +XXV + + +A heavy heart, Beloved, 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 its 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 its own nature does precipitate, +While thine doth close above it, mediating +Betwixt the stars and the unaccomplished fate. + + + + +XXVI + + +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, +Beloved, 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. + + + + +XXVII + + +My own Beloved, 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. + + + + +XXVIII + + +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 its 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! + + + + +XXIX + + +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. + + + + +XXX + + +I see thine image through my tears to-night, +And yet to-day I saw thee smiling. How +Refer the cause?--Beloved, 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. +Beloved, 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? + + + + +XXXI + + +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 dove-like 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. + + + + +XXXII + + +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. + + + + +XXXIII + + +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 plied, +To glance up in some face that proved me dear +With the look of its 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. + + + + +XXXIV + + +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. + + + + +XXXV + + +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 thy heart wide, +And fold within, the wet wings of thy dove. + + + + +XXXVI + + +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 enclasped 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. + + + + +XXXVII + + +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. + + + + +XXXVIII + + +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 its "O, 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." + + + + +XXXIX + + +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! + + + + +XL + + +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 Beloved! thou canst wait +Through sorrow and sickness, to bring souls to touch, +And think it soon when others cry "Too late." + + + + +XLI + + +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 its 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 harken 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! + + + + +XLII + + +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! + + + + +XLIII + + +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. + + + + +XLIV + + +Beloved, 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. + + + + + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SONNETS FROM THE PORTUGUESE *** + +***** This file should be named 2002.txt or 2002.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/2/0/0/2002/ + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net + + +Title: Sonnets from the Portuguese + +Author: Browning, Elizabeth Barrett + +Release Date: September 14, 2004 [EBook #2002] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SONNETS FROM THE PORTUGUESE *** +</pre> +<p><a name="startoftext"></a></p> +<p>Transcribed from the 1906 Caradoc Press edition by David Price, email +ccx074@coventry.ac.uk.</p> +<h1>SONNETS FROM THE PORTUGUESE</h1> +<h2>INDEX OF FIRST LINES</h2> +<p>I I thought once how Theocritus +had sung<br /> +II But only three in all God’s universe<br /> +III Unlike are we, unlike, O princely Heart!<br /> +IV Thou hast thy calling to some palace-floor<br /> +V I lift my heavy heart up solemnly<br /> +VI Go from me. Yet I feel that I +shall stand<br /> +VII The face of all the world is changed, I +think<br /> +VIII What can I give thee back, O liberal<br /> +IX Can it be right to give what I can +give?<br /> +X Yet, love, mere love, is beautiful +indeed<br /> +XI And therefore if to love can be desert<br /> +XII Indeed this very love which is my boast<br /> +XIII And wilt thou have me fashion into speech<br /> +XIV If thou must love me, let it be for nought<br /> +XV Accuse me not, beseech thee, that I +wear<br /> +XVI And yet, because thou overcomest so<br /> +XVII My poet thou canst touch on all the notes<br /> +XVIII I never gave a lock of hair away<br /> +XIX The soul’s Rialto hath its merchandize<br /> +XX Beloved, my beloved, when I think<br /> +XXI Say over again, and yet once over again<br /> +XXII When our two souls stand up erect and strong<br /> +XXIII Is it indeed so? If I lay here dead<br /> +XXIV Let the world’s sharpness like a clasping +knife<br /> +XXV A heavy heart, Beloved, have I borne<br /> +XXVI I lived with visions for my company<br /> +XXVII My own Beloved, who hast lifted me<br /> +XXVIII My letters! all dead paper, mute and white!<br /> +XXIX I think of thee!—my thoughts do twine and +bud<br /> +XXX I see thine image through my tears to-night<br /> +XXXI Thou comest! all is said without a word<br /> +XXXII The first time that the sun rose on thine oath<br /> +XXXIII Yes, call me by my pet-name! let me hear<br /> +XXXIV With the same heart, I said, I’ll answer thee<br /> +XXXV If I leave all for thee, wilt thou exchange<br /> +XXXVI When we met first and loved, I did not build<br /> +XXXVII Pardon, oh, pardon, that my soul should make<br /> +XXXVIII First time he kissed me, he but only kissed<br /> +XXXIX Because thou hast the power and own’st the grace<br /> +XL Oh, yes! they love through all this +world of ours!<br /> +XLI I thank all who have loved me in their hearts<br /> +XLII My future will not copy fair my past<br /> +XLIII How do I love thee? Let me count the ways<br /> +XLIV Beloved, thou hast brought me many flowers</p> +<h2>I</h2> +<p>I thought once how Theocritus had sung<br /> +Of the sweet years, the dear and wished-for years,<br /> +Who each one in a gracious hand appears<br /> +To bear a gift for mortals, old or young:<br /> +And, as I mused it in his antique tongue,<br /> +I saw, in gradual vision through my tears,<br /> +The sweet, sad years, the melancholy years,<br /> +Those of my own life, who by turns had flung<br /> +A shadow across me. Straightway I was ’ware,<br /> +So weeping, how a mystic Shape did move<br /> +Behind me, and drew me backward by the hair;<br /> +And a voice said in mastery, while I strove,—<br /> +“Guess now who holds thee!”—“Death,” I +said, But, there,<br /> +The silver answer rang, “Not Death, but Love.”</p> +<h2>II</h2> +<p>But only three in all God’s universe<br /> +Have heard this word thou hast said,—Himself, beside<br /> +Thee speaking, and me listening! and replied<br /> +One of us . . . that was God, . . . and laid the curse<br /> +So darkly on my eyelids, as to amerce<br /> +My sight from seeing thee,—that if I had died,<br /> +The death-weights, placed there, would have signified<br /> +Less absolute exclusion. “Nay” is worse<br /> +From God than from all others, O my friend!<br /> +Men could not part us with their worldly jars,<br /> +Nor the seas change us, nor the tempests bend;<br /> +Our hands would touch for all the mountain-bars:<br /> +And, heaven being rolled between us at the end,<br /> +We should but vow the faster for the stars.</p> +<h2>III</h2> +<p>Unlike are we, unlike, O princely Heart!<br /> +Unlike our uses and our destinies.<br /> +Our ministering two angels look surprise<br /> +On one another, as they strike athwart<br /> +Their wings in passing. Thou, bethink thee, art<br /> +A guest for queens to social pageantries,<br /> +With gages from a hundred brighter eyes<br /> +Than tears even can make mine, to play thy part<br /> +Of chief musician. What hast thou to do<br /> +With looking from the lattice-lights at me,<br /> +A poor, tired, wandering singer, singing through<br /> +The dark, and leaning up a cypress tree?<br /> +The chrism is on thine head,—on mine, the dew,—<br /> +And Death must dig the level where these agree.</p> +<h2>IV</h2> +<p>Thou hast thy calling to some palace-floor,<br /> +Most gracious singer of high poems! where<br /> +The dancers will break footing, from the care<br /> +Of watching up thy pregnant lips for more.<br /> +And dost thou lift this house’s latch too poor<br /> +For hand of thine? and canst thou think and bear<br /> +To let thy music drop here unaware<br /> +In folds of golden fulness at my door?<br /> +Look up and see the casement broken in,<br /> +The bats and owlets builders in the roof!<br /> +My cricket chirps against thy mandolin.<br /> +Hush, call no echo up in further proof<br /> +Of desolation! there’s a voice within<br /> +That weeps . . . as thou must sing . . . alone, aloof.</p> +<h2>V</h2> +<p>I lift my heavy heart up solemnly,<br /> +As once Electra her sepulchral urn,<br /> +And, looking in thine eyes, I over-turn<br /> +The ashes at thy feet. Behold and see<br /> +What a great heap of grief lay hid in me,<br /> +And how the red wild sparkles dimly burn<br /> +Through the ashen greyness. If thy foot in scorn<br /> +Could tread them out to darkness utterly,<br /> +It might be well perhaps. But if instead<br /> +Thou wait beside me for the wind to blow<br /> +The grey dust up, . . . those laurels on thine head,<br /> +O my Belovëd, will not shield thee so,<br /> +That none of all the fires shall scorch and shred<br /> +The hair beneath. Stand further off then! go!</p> +<h2>VI</h2> +<p>Go from me. Yet I feel that I shall stand<br /> +Henceforward in thy shadow. Nevermore<br /> +Alone upon the threshold of my door<br /> +Of individual life, I shall command<br /> +The uses of my soul, nor lift my hand<br /> +Serenely in the sunshine as before,<br /> +Without the sense of that which I forbore—<br /> +Thy touch upon the palm. The widest land<br /> +Doom takes to part us, leaves thy heart in mine<br /> +With pulses that beat double. What I do<br /> +And what I dream include thee, as the wine<br /> +Must taste of its own grapes. And when I sue<br /> +God for myself, He hears that name of thine,<br /> +And sees within my eyes the tears of two.</p> +<h2>VII</h2> +<p>The face of all the world is changed, I think,<br /> +Since first I heard the footsteps of thy soul<br /> +Move still, oh, still, beside me, as they stole<br /> +Betwixt me and the dreadful outer brink<br /> +Of obvious death, where I, who thought to sink,<br /> +Was caught up into love, and taught the whole<br /> +Of life in a new rhythm. The cup of dole<br /> +God gave for baptism, I am fain to drink,<br /> +And praise its sweetness, Sweet, with thee anear.<br /> +The names of country, heaven, are changed away<br /> +For where thou art or shalt be, there or here;<br /> +And this . . . this lute and song . . . loved yesterday,<br /> +(The singing angels know) are only dear<br /> +Because thy name moves right in what they say.</p> +<h2>VIII</h2> +<p>What can I give thee back, O liberal<br /> +And princely giver, who hast brought the gold<br /> +And purple of thine heart, unstained, untold,<br /> +And laid them on the outside of the wall<br /> +For such as I to take or leave withal,<br /> +In unexpected largesse? am I cold,<br /> +Ungrateful, that for these most manifold<br /> +High gifts, I render nothing back at all?<br /> +Not so; not cold,—but very poor instead.<br /> +Ask God who knows. For frequent tears have run<br /> +The colours from my life, and left so dead<br /> +And pale a stuff, it were not fitly done<br /> +To give the same as pillow to thy head.<br /> +Go farther! let it serve to trample on.</p> +<h2>IX</h2> +<p>Can it be right to give what I can give?<br /> +To let thee sit beneath the fall of tears<br /> +As salt as mine, and hear the sighing years<br /> +Re-sighing on my lips renunciative<br /> +Through those infrequent smiles which fail to live<br /> +For all thy adjurations? O my fears,<br /> +That this can scarce be right! We are not peers<br /> +So to be lovers; and I own, and grieve,<br /> +That givers of such gifts as mine are, must<br /> +Be counted with the ungenerous. Out, alas!<br /> +I will not soil thy purple with my dust,<br /> +Nor breathe my poison on thy Venice-glass,<br /> +Nor give thee any love—which were unjust.<br /> +Beloved, I only love thee! let it pass.</p> +<h2>X</h2> +<p>Yet, love, mere love, is beautiful indeed<br /> +And worthy of acceptation. Fire is bright,<br /> +Let temple burn, or flax; an equal light<br /> +Leaps in the flame from cedar-plank or weed:<br /> +And love is fire. And when I say at need<br /> +I love thee . . . mark! . . . I love thee—in thy sight<br /> +I stand transfigured, glorified aright,<br /> +With conscience of the new rays that proceed<br /> +Out of my face toward thine. There’s nothing low<br /> +In love, when love the lowest: meanest creatures<br /> +Who love God, God accepts while loving so.<br /> +And what I feel, across the inferior features<br /> +Of what I am, doth flash itself, and show<br /> +How that great work of Love enhances Nature’s.</p> +<h2>XI</h2> +<p>And therefore if to love can be desert,<br /> +I am not all unworthy. Cheeks as pale<br /> +As these you see, and trembling knees that fail<br /> +To bear the burden of a heavy heart,—<br /> +This weary minstrel-life that once was girt<br /> +To climb Aornus, and can scarce avail<br /> +To pipe now ’gainst the valley nightingale<br /> +A melancholy music,—why advert<br /> +To these things? O Belovëd, it is plain<br /> +I am not of thy worth nor for thy place!<br /> +And yet, because I love thee, I obtain<br /> +From that same love this vindicating grace<br /> +To live on still in love, and yet in vain,—<br /> +To bless thee, yet renounce thee to thy face.</p> +<h2>XII</h2> +<p>Indeed this very love which is my boast,<br /> +And which, when rising up from breast to brow,<br /> +Doth crown me with a ruby large enow<br /> +To draw men’s eyes and prove the inner cost,—<br /> +This love even, all my worth, to the uttermost,<br /> +I should not love withal, unless that thou<br /> +Hadst set me an example, shown me how,<br /> +When first thine earnest eyes with mine were crossed,<br /> +And love called love. And thus, I cannot speak<br /> +Of love even, as a good thing of my own:<br /> +Thy soul hath snatched up mine all faint and weak,<br /> +And placed it by thee on a golden throne,—<br /> +And that I love (O soul, we must be meek!)<br /> +Is by thee only, whom I love alone.</p> +<h2>XIII</h2> +<p>And wilt thou have me fashion into speech<br /> +The love I bear thee, finding words enough,<br /> +And hold the torch out, while the winds are rough,<br /> +Between our faces, to cast light on each?—<br /> +I drop it at thy feet. I cannot teach<br /> +My hand to hold my spirits so far off<br /> +From myself—me—that I should bring thee proof<br /> +In words, of love hid in me out of reach.<br /> +Nay, let the silence of my womanhood<br /> +Commend my woman-love to thy belief,—<br /> +Seeing that I stand unwon, however wooed,<br /> +And rend the garment of my life, in brief,<br /> +By a most dauntless, voiceless fortitude,<br /> +Lest one touch of this heart convey its grief.</p> +<h2>XIV</h2> +<p>If thou must love me, let it be for nought<br /> +Except for love’s sake only. Do not say<br /> +“I love her for her smile—her look—her way<br /> +Of speaking gently,—for a trick of thought<br /> +That falls in well with mine, and certes brought<br /> +A sense of pleasant ease on such a day”—<br /> +For these things in themselves, Belovëd, may<br /> +Be changed, or change for thee,—and love, so wrought,<br /> +May be unwrought so. Neither love me for<br /> +Thine own dear pity’s wiping my cheeks dry,—<br /> +A creature might forget to weep, who bore<br /> +Thy comfort long, and lose thy love thereby!<br /> +But love me for love’s sake, that evermore<br /> +Thou may’st love on, through love’s eternity.</p> +<h2>XV</h2> +<p>Accuse me not, beseech thee, that I wear<br /> +Too calm and sad a face in front of thine;<br /> +For we two look two ways, and cannot shine<br /> +With the same sunlight on our brow and hair.<br /> +On me thou lookest with no doubting care,<br /> +As on a bee shut in a crystalline;<br /> +Since sorrow hath shut me safe in love’s divine,<br /> +And to spread wing and fly in the outer air<br /> +Were most impossible failure, if I strove<br /> +To fail so. But I look on thee—on thee—<br /> +Beholding, besides love, the end of love,<br /> +Hearing oblivion beyond memory;<br /> +As one who sits and gazes from above,<br /> +Over the rivers to the bitter sea.</p> +<h2>XVI</h2> +<p>And yet, because thou overcomest so,<br /> +Because thou art more noble and like a king,<br /> +Thou canst prevail against my fears and fling<br /> +Thy purple round me, till my heart shall grow<br /> +Too close against thine heart henceforth to know<br /> +How it shook when alone. Why, conquering<br /> +May prove as lordly and complete a thing<br /> +In lifting upward, as in crushing low!<br /> +And as a vanquished soldier yields his sword<br /> +To one who lifts him from the bloody earth,<br /> +Even so, Belovëd, I at last record,<br /> +Here ends my strife. If thou invite me forth,<br /> +I rise above abasement at the word.<br /> +Make thy love larger to enlarge my worth!</p> +<h2>XVII</h2> +<p>My poet, thou canst touch on all the notes<br /> +God set between His After and Before,<br /> +And strike up and strike off the general roar<br /> +Of the rushing worlds a melody that floats<br /> +In a serene air purely. Antidotes<br /> +Of medicated music, answering for<br /> +Mankind’s forlornest uses, thou canst pour<br /> +From thence into their ears. God’s will devotes<br /> +Thine to such ends, and mine to wait on thine.<br /> +How, Dearest, wilt thou have me for most use?<br /> +A hope, to sing by gladly? or a fine<br /> +Sad memory, with thy songs to interfuse?<br /> +A shade, in which to sing—of palm or pine?<br /> +A grave, on which to rest from singing? Choose.</p> +<h2>XVIII</h2> +<p>I never gave a lock of hair away<br /> +To a man, Dearest, except this to thee,<br /> +Which now upon my fingers thoughtfully<br /> +I ring out to the full brown length and say<br /> +“Take it.” My day of youth went yesterday;<br /> +My hair no longer bounds to my foot’s glee,<br /> +Nor plant I it from rose- or myrtle-tree,<br /> +As girls do, any more: it only may<br /> +Now shade on two pale cheeks the mark of tears,<br /> +Taught drooping from the head that hangs aside<br /> +Through sorrow’s trick. I thought the funeral-shears<br /> +Would take this first, but Love is justified,—<br /> +Take it thou,—finding pure, from all those years,<br /> +The kiss my mother left here when she died.</p> +<h2>XIX</h2> +<p>The soul’s Rialto hath its merchandize;<br /> +I barter curl for curl upon that mart,<br /> +And from my poet’s forehead to my heart<br /> +Receive this lock which outweighs argosies,—<br /> +As purply black, as erst to Pindar’s eyes<br /> +The dim purpureal tresses gloomed athwart<br /> +The nine white Muse-brows. For this counterpart, . . .<br /> +The bay crown’s shade, Belovëd, I surmise,<br /> +Still lingers on thy curl, it is so black!<br /> +Thus, with a fillet of smooth-kissing breath,<br /> +I tie the shadows safe from gliding back,<br /> +And lay the gift where nothing hindereth;<br /> +Here on my heart, as on thy brow, to lack<br /> +No natural heat till mine grows cold in death.</p> +<h2>XX</h2> +<p>Belovëd, my Belovëd, when I think<br /> +That thou wast in the world a year ago,<br /> +What time I sat alone here in the snow<br /> +And saw no footprint, heard the silence sink<br /> +No moment at thy voice, but, link by link,<br /> +Went counting all my chains as if that so<br /> +They never could fall off at any blow<br /> +Struck by thy possible hand,—why, thus I drink<br /> +Of life’s great cup of wonder! Wonderful,<br /> +Never to feel thee thrill the day or night<br /> +With personal act or speech,—nor ever cull<br /> +Some prescience of thee with the blossoms white<br /> +Thou sawest growing! Atheists are as dull,<br /> +Who cannot guess God’s presence out of sight.</p> +<h2>XXI</h2> +<p>Say over again, and yet once over again,<br /> +That thou dost love me. Though the word repeated<br /> +Should seem a “cuckoo-song,” as thou dost treat it,<br /> +Remember, never to the hill or plain,<br /> +Valley and wood, without her cuckoo-strain<br /> +Comes the fresh Spring in all her green completed.<br /> +Belovëd, I, amid the darkness greeted<br /> +By a doubtful spirit-voice, in that doubt’s pain<br /> +Cry, “Speak once more—thou lovest!” Who can +fear<br /> +Too many stars, though each in heaven shall roll,<br /> +Too many flowers, though each shall crown the year?<br /> +Say thou dost love me, love me, love me—toll<br /> +The silver iterance!—only minding, Dear,<br /> +To love me also in silence with thy soul.</p> +<h2>XXII</h2> +<p>When our two souls stand up erect and strong,<br /> +Face to face, silent, drawing nigh and nigher,<br /> +Until the lengthening wings break into fire<br /> +At either curvëd point,—what bitter wrong<br /> +Can the earth do to us, that we should not long<br /> +Be here contented? Think! In mounting higher,<br /> +The angels would press on us and aspire<br /> +To drop some golden orb of perfect song<br /> +Into our deep, dear silence. Let us stay<br /> +Rather on earth, Belovëd,—where the unfit<br /> +Contrarious moods of men recoil away<br /> +And isolate pure spirits, and permit<br /> +A place to stand and love in for a day,<br /> +With darkness and the death-hour rounding it.</p> +<h2>XXIII</h2> +<p>Is it indeed so? If I lay here dead,<br /> +Wouldst thou miss any life in losing mine?<br /> +And would the sun for thee more coldly shine<br /> +Because of grave-damps falling round my head?<br /> +I marvelled, my Belovëd, when I read<br /> +Thy thought so in the letter. I am thine—<br /> +But . . . so much to thee? Can I pour thy wine<br /> +While my hands tremble? Then my soul, instead<br /> +Of dreams of death, resumes life’s lower range.<br /> +Then, love me, Love! look on me—breathe on me!<br /> +As brighter ladies do not count it strange,<br /> +For love, to give up acres and degree,<br /> +I yield the grave for thy sake, and exchange<br /> +My near sweet view of heaven, for earth with thee!</p> +<h2>XXIV</h2> +<p>Let the world’s sharpness like a clasping knife<br /> +Shut in upon itself and do no harm<br /> +In this close hand of Love, now soft and warm,<br /> +And let us hear no sound of human strife<br /> +After the click of the shutting. Life to life—<br /> +I lean upon thee, Dear, without alarm,<br /> +And feel as safe as guarded by a charm<br /> +Against the stab of worldlings, who if rife<br /> +Are weak to injure. Very whitely still<br /> +The lilies of our lives may reassure<br /> +Their blossoms from their roots, accessible<br /> +Alone to heavenly dews that drop not fewer;<br /> +Growing straight, out of man’s reach, on the hill.<br /> +God only, who made us rich, can make us poor.</p> +<h2>XXV</h2> +<p>A heavy heart, Belovëd, have I borne<br /> +From year to year until I saw thy face,<br /> +And sorrow after sorrow took the place<br /> +Of all those natural joys as lightly worn<br /> +As the stringed pearls, each lifted in its turn<br /> +By a beating heart at dance-time. Hopes apace<br /> +Were changed to long despairs, till God’s own grace<br /> +Could scarcely lift above the world forlorn<br /> +My heavy heart. Then thou didst bid me bring<br /> +And let it drop adown thy calmly great<br /> +Deep being! Fast it sinketh, as a thing<br /> +Which its own nature does precipitate,<br /> +While thine doth close above it, mediating<br /> +Betwixt the stars and the unaccomplished fate.</p> +<h2>XXVI</h2> +<p>I lived with visions for my company<br /> +Instead of men and women, years ago,<br /> +And found them gentle mates, nor thought to know<br /> +A sweeter music than they played to me.<br /> +But soon their trailing purple was not free<br /> +Of this world’s dust, their lutes did silent grow,<br /> +And I myself grew faint and blind below<br /> +Their vanishing eyes. Then thou didst come—to be,<br /> +Belovëd, what they seemed. Their shining fronts,<br /> +Their songs, their splendours, (better, yet the same,<br /> +As river-water hallowed into fonts)<br /> +Met in thee, and from out thee overcame<br /> +My soul with satisfaction of all wants:<br /> +Because God’s gifts put man’s best dreams to shame.</p> +<h2>XXVII</h2> +<p>My own Belovëd, who hast lifted me<br /> +From this drear flat of earth where I was thrown,<br /> +And, in betwixt the languid ringlets, blown<br /> +A life-breath, till the forehead hopefully<br /> +Shines out again, as all the angels see,<br /> +Before thy saving kiss! My own, my own,<br /> +Who camest to me when the world was gone,<br /> +And I who looked for only God, found thee!<br /> +I find thee; I am safe, and strong, and glad.<br /> +As one who stands in dewless asphodel,<br /> +Looks backward on the tedious time he had<br /> +In the upper life,—so I, with bosom-swell,<br /> +Make witness, here, between the good and bad,<br /> +That Love, as strong as Death, retrieves as well.</p> +<h2>XXVIII</h2> +<p>My letters! all dead paper, mute and white!<br /> +And yet they seem alive and quivering<br /> +Against my tremulous hands which loose the string<br /> +And let them drop down on my knee to-night.<br /> +This said,—he wished to have me in his sight<br /> +Once, as a friend: this fixed a day in spring<br /> +To come and touch my hand . . . a simple thing,<br /> +Yet I wept for it!—this, . . . the paper’s light . . .<br /> +Said, Dear I love thee; and I sank and quailed<br /> +As if God’s future thundered on my past.<br /> +This said, I am thine—and so its ink has paled<br /> +With lying at my heart that beat too fast.<br /> +And this . . . O Love, thy words have ill availed<br /> +If, what this said, I dared repeat at last!</p> +<h2>XXIX</h2> +<p>I think of thee!—my thoughts do twine and bud<br /> +About thee, as wild vines, about a tree,<br /> +Put out broad leaves, and soon there’s nought to see<br /> +Except the straggling green which hides the wood.<br /> +Yet, O my palm-tree, be it understood<br /> +I will not have my thoughts instead of thee<br /> +Who art dearer, better! Rather, instantly<br /> +Renew thy presence; as a strong tree should,<br /> +Rustle thy boughs and set thy trunk all bare,<br /> +And let these bands of greenery which insphere thee,<br /> +Drop heavily down,—burst, shattered everywhere!<br /> +Because, in this deep joy to see and hear thee<br /> +And breathe within thy shadow a new air,<br /> +I do not think of thee—I am too near thee.</p> +<h2>XXX</h2> +<p>I see thine image through my tears to-night,<br /> +And yet to-day I saw thee smiling. How<br /> +Refer the cause?—Belovëd, is it thou<br /> +Or I, who makes me sad? The acolyte<br /> +Amid the chanted joy and thankful rite<br /> +May so fall flat, with pale insensate brow,<br /> +On the altar-stair. I hear thy voice and vow,<br /> +Perplexed, uncertain, since thou art out of sight,<br /> +As he, in his swooning ears, the choir’s amen.<br /> +Belovëd, dost thou love? or did I see all<br /> +The glory as I dreamed, and fainted when<br /> +Too vehement light dilated my ideal,<br /> +For my soul’s eyes? Will that light come again,<br /> +As now these tears come—falling hot and real?</p> +<h2>XXXI</h2> +<p>Thou comest! all is said without a word.<br /> +I sit beneath thy looks, as children do<br /> +In the noon-sun, with souls that tremble through<br /> +Their happy eyelids from an unaverred<br /> +Yet prodigal inward joy. Behold, I erred<br /> +In that last doubt! and yet I cannot rue<br /> +The sin most, but the occasion—that we two<br /> +Should for a moment stand unministered<br /> +By a mutual presence. Ah, keep near and close,<br /> +Thou dove-like help! and when my fears would rise,<br /> +With thy broad heart serenely interpose:<br /> +Brood down with thy divine sufficiencies<br /> +These thoughts which tremble when bereft of those,<br /> +Like callow birds left desert to the skies.</p> +<h2>XXXII</h2> +<p>The first time that the sun rose on thine oath<br /> +To love me, I looked forward to the moon<br /> +To slacken all those bonds which seemed too soon<br /> +And quickly tied to make a lasting troth.<br /> +Quick-loving hearts, I thought, may quickly loathe;<br /> +And, looking on myself, I seemed not one<br /> +For such man’s love!—more like an out-of-tune<br /> +Worn viol, a good singer would be wroth<br /> +To spoil his song with, and which, snatched in haste,<br /> +Is laid down at the first ill-sounding note.<br /> +I did not wrong myself so, but I placed<br /> +A wrong on thee. For perfect strains may float<br /> +’Neath master-hands, from instruments defaced,—<br /> +And great souls, at one stroke, may do and doat.</p> +<h2>XXXIII</h2> +<p>Yes, call me by my pet-name! let me hear<br /> +The name I used to run at, when a child,<br /> +From innocent play, and leave the cowslips plied,<br /> +To glance up in some face that proved me dear<br /> +With the look of its eyes. I miss the clear<br /> +Fond voices which, being drawn and reconciled<br /> +Into the music of Heaven’s undefiled,<br /> +Call me no longer. Silence on the bier,<br /> +While I call God—call God!—so let thy mouth<br /> +Be heir to those who are now exanimate.<br /> +Gather the north flowers to complete the south,<br /> +And catch the early love up in the late.<br /> +Yes, call me by that name,—and I, in truth,<br /> +With the same heart, will answer and not wait.</p> +<h2>XXXIV</h2> +<p>With the same heart, I said, I’ll answer thee<br /> +As those, when thou shalt call me by my name—<br /> +Lo, the vain promise! is the same, the same,<br /> +Perplexed and ruffled by life’s strategy?<br /> +When called before, I told how hastily<br /> +I dropped my flowers or brake off from a game.<br /> +To run and answer with the smile that came<br /> +At play last moment, and went on with me<br /> +Through my obedience. When I answer now,<br /> +I drop a grave thought, break from solitude;<br /> +Yet still my heart goes to thee—ponder how—<br /> +Not as to a single good, but all my good!<br /> +Lay thy hand on it, best one, and allow<br /> +That no child’s foot could run fast as this blood.</p> +<h2>XXXV</h2> +<p>If I leave all for thee, wilt thou exchange<br /> +And be all to me? Shall I never miss<br /> +Home-talk and blessing and the common kiss<br /> +That comes to each in turn, nor count it strange,<br /> +When I look up, to drop on a new range<br /> +Of walls and floors, another home than this?<br /> +Nay, wilt thou fill that place by me which is<br /> +Filled by dead eyes too tender to know change<br /> +That’s hardest. If to conquer love, has tried,<br /> +To conquer grief, tries more, as all things prove,<br /> +For grief indeed is love and grief beside.<br /> +Alas, I have grieved so I am hard to love.<br /> +Yet love me—wilt thou? Open thy heart wide,<br /> +And fold within, the wet wings of thy dove.</p> +<h2>XXXVI</h2> +<p>When we met first and loved, I did not build<br /> +Upon the event with marble. Could it mean<br /> +To last, a love set pendulous between<br /> +Sorrow and sorrow? Nay, I rather thrilled,<br /> +Distrusting every light that seemed to gild<br /> +The onward path, and feared to overlean<br /> +A finger even. And, though I have grown serene<br /> +And strong since then, I think that God has willed<br /> +A still renewable fear . . . O love, O troth . . .<br /> +Lest these enclaspëd hands should never hold,<br /> +This mutual kiss drop down between us both<br /> +As an unowned thing, once the lips being cold.<br /> +And Love, be false! if he, to keep one oath,<br /> +Must lose one joy, by his life’s star foretold.</p> +<h2>XXXVII</h2> +<p>Pardon, oh, pardon, that my soul should make<br /> +Of all that strong divineness which I know<br /> +For thine and thee, an image only so<br /> +Formed of the sand, and fit to shift and break.<br /> +It is that distant years which did not take<br /> +Thy sovranty, recoiling with a blow,<br /> +Have forced my swimming brain to undergo<br /> +Their doubt and dread, and blindly to forsake<br /> +Thy purity of likeness and distort<br /> +Thy worthiest love to a worthless counterfeit.<br /> +As if a shipwrecked Pagan, safe in port,<br /> +His guardian sea-god to commemorate,<br /> +Should set a sculptured porpoise, gills a-snort<br /> +And vibrant tail, within the temple-gate.</p> +<h2>XXXVIII</h2> +<p>First time he kissed me, he but only kissed<br /> +The fingers of this hand wherewith I write;<br /> +And ever since, it grew more clean and white.<br /> +Slow to world-greetings, quick with its “O, list,”<br /> +When the angels speak. A ring of amethyst<br /> +I could not wear here, plainer to my sight,<br /> +Than that first kiss. The second passed in height<br /> +The first, and sought the forehead, and half missed,<br /> +Half falling on the hair. O beyond meed!<br /> +That was the chrism of love, which love’s own crown,<br /> +With sanctifying sweetness, did precede<br /> +The third upon my lips was folded down<br /> +In perfect, purple state; since when, indeed,<br /> +I have been proud and said, “My love, my own.”</p> +<h2>XXXIX</h2> +<p>Because thou hast the power and own’st the grace<br /> +To look through and behind this mask of me,<br /> +(Against which, years have beat thus blanchingly,<br /> +With their rains,) and behold my soul’s true face,<br /> +The dim and weary witness of life’s race,—<br /> +Because thou hast the faith and love to see,<br /> +Through that same soul’s distracting lethargy,<br /> +The patient angel waiting for a place<br /> +In the new Heavens,—because nor sin nor woe,<br /> +Nor God’s infliction, nor death’s neighbourhood,<br /> +Nor all which others viewing, turn to go,<br /> +Nor all which makes me tired of all, self-viewed,—<br /> +Nothing repels thee, . . . Dearest, teach me so<br /> +To pour out gratitude, as thou dost, good!</p> +<h2>XL</h2> +<p>Oh, yes! they love through all this world of ours!<br /> +I will not gainsay love, called love forsooth:<br /> +I have heard love talked in my early youth,<br /> +And since, not so long back but that the flowers<br /> +Then gathered, smell still. Mussulmans and Giaours<br /> +Throw kerchiefs at a smile, and have no ruth<br /> +For any weeping. Polypheme’s white tooth<br /> +Slips on the nut if, after frequent showers,<br /> +The shell is over-smooth,—and not so much<br /> +Will turn the thing called love, aside to hate<br /> +Or else to oblivion. But thou art not such<br /> +A lover, my Belovëd! thou canst wait<br /> +Through sorrow and sickness, to bring souls to touch,<br /> +And think it soon when others cry “Too late.”</p> +<h2>XLI</h2> +<p>I thank all who have loved me in their hearts,<br /> +With thanks and love from mine. Deep thanks to all<br /> +Who paused a little near the prison-wall<br /> +To hear my music in its louder parts<br /> +Ere they went onward, each one to the mart’s<br /> +Or temple’s occupation, beyond call.<br /> +But thou, who, in my voice’s sink and fall<br /> +When the sob took it, thy divinest Art’s<br /> +Own instrument didst drop down at thy foot<br /> +To harken what I said between my tears, . . .<br /> +Instruct me how to thank thee! Oh, to shoot<br /> +My soul’s full meaning into future years,<br /> +That they should lend it utterance, and salute<br /> +Love that endures, from life that disappears!</p> +<h2>XLII</h2> +<p>My future will not copy fair my past—<br /> +I wrote that once; and thinking at my side<br /> +My ministering life-angel justified<br /> +The word by his appealing look upcast<br /> +To the white throne of God, I turned at last,<br /> +And there, instead, saw thee, not unallied<br /> +To angels in thy soul! Then I, long tried<br /> +By natural ills, received the comfort fast,<br /> +While budding, at thy sight, my pilgrim’s staff<br /> +Gave out green leaves with morning dews impearled.<br /> +I seek no copy now of life’s first half:<br /> +Leave here the pages with long musing curled,<br /> +And write me new my future’s epigraph,<br /> +New angel mine, unhoped for in the world!</p> +<h2>XLIII</h2> +<p>How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.<br /> +I love thee to the depth and breadth and height<br /> +My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight<br /> +For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.<br /> +I love thee to the level of everyday’s<br /> +Most quiet need, by sun and candlelight.<br /> +I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;<br /> +I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.<br /> +I love thee with the passion put to use<br /> +In my old griefs, and with my childhood’s faith.<br /> +I love thee with a love I seemed to lose<br /> +With my lost saints,—I love thee with the breath,<br /> +Smiles, tears, of all my life!—and, if God choose,<br /> +I shall but love thee better after death.</p> +<h2>XLIV</h2> +<p>Belovëd, thou hast brought me many flowers<br /> +Plucked in the garden, all the summer through,<br /> +And winter, and it seemed as if they grew<br /> +In this close room, nor missed the sun and showers.<br /> +So, in the like name of that love of ours,<br /> +Take back these thoughts which here unfolded too,<br /> +And which on warm and cold days I withdrew<br /> +From my heart’s ground. Indeed, those beds and bowers<br /> +Be overgrown with bitter weeds and rue,<br /> +And wait thy weeding; yet here’s eglantine,<br /> +Here’s ivy!—take them, as I used to do<br /> +Thy flowers, and keep them where they shall not pine.<br /> +Instruct thine eyes to keep their colours true,<br /> +And tell thy soul, their roots are left in mine.</p> +<p>*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SONNETS FROM THE PORTUGUESE ***</p> +<pre> + +***** This file should be named 2002-h.htm or 2002-h.zip****** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.net/2/0/0/2002/ + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net + + +Title: Sonnets from the Portuguese + +Author: Browning, Elizabeth Barrett + +Release Date: September 14, 2004 [EBook #2002] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SONNETS FROM THE PORTUGUESE *** + + + + +Transcribed from the 1906 Caradoc Press edition by David Price, email +ccx074@coventry.ac.uk. + + + + + +SONNETS FROM THE PORTUGUESE + + +INDEX OF FIRST LINES + + +I I thought once how Theocritus had sung +II But only three in all God's universe +III Unlike are we, unlike, O princely Heart! +IV Thou hast thy calling to some palace-floor +V I lift my heavy heart up solemnly +VI Go from me. Yet I feel that I shall stand +VII The face of all the world is changed, I think +VIII What can I give thee back, O liberal +IX Can it be right to give what I can give? +X Yet, love, mere love, is beautiful indeed +XI And therefore if to love can be desert +XII Indeed this very love which is my boast +XIII And wilt thou have me fashion into speech +XIV If thou must love me, let it be for nought +XV Accuse me not, beseech thee, that I wear +XVI And yet, because thou overcomest so +XVII My poet thou canst touch on all the notes +XVIII I never gave a lock of hair away +XIX The soul's Rialto hath its merchandize +XX Beloved, my beloved, when I think +XXI Say over again, and yet once over again +XXII When our two souls stand up erect and strong +XXIII Is it indeed so? If I lay here dead +XXIV Let the world's sharpness like a clasping knife +XXV A heavy heart, Beloved, have I borne +XXVI I lived with visions for my company +XXVII My own Beloved, who hast lifted me +XXVIII My letters! all dead paper, mute and white! +XXIX I think of thee!--my thoughts do twine and bud +XXX I see thine image through my tears to-night +XXXI Thou comest! all is said without a word +XXXII The first time that the sun rose on thine oath +XXXIII Yes, call me by my pet-name! let me hear +XXXIV With the same heart, I said, I'll answer thee +XXXV If I leave all for thee, wilt thou exchange +XXXVI When we met first and loved, I did not build +XXXVII Pardon, oh, pardon, that my soul should make +XXXVIII First time he kissed me, he but only kissed +XXXIX Because thou hast the power and own'st the grace +XL Oh, yes! they love through all this world of ours! +XLI I thank all who have loved me in their hearts +XLII My future will not copy fair my past +XLIII How do I love thee? Let me count the ways +XLIV Beloved, thou hast brought me many flowers + + + + +I + + +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." + + + + +II + + +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 death-weights, 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. + + + + +III + + +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. + + + + +IV + + +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. + + + + +V + + +I lift my heavy heart up solemnly, +As once Electra her sepulchral urn, +And, looking in thine eyes, I over-turn +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 Beloved, will not shield thee so, +That none of all the fires shall scorch and shred +The hair beneath. Stand further off then! go! + + + + +VI + + +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 its own grapes. And when I sue +God for myself, He hears that name of thine, +And sees within my eyes the tears of two. + + + + +VII + + +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 its 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. + + + + +VIII + + +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. + + + + +IX + + +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. + + + + +X + + +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 itself, and show +How that great work of Love enhances Nature's. + + + + +XI + + +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 Beloved, 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. + + + + +XII + + +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. + + + + +XIII + + +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 spirits 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 its grief. + + + + +XIV + + +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, Beloved, 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 may'st love on, through love's eternity. + + + + +XV + + +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 sits and gazes from above, +Over the rivers to the bitter sea. + + + + +XVI + + +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, Beloved, 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! + + + + +XVII + + +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. + + + + +XVIII + + +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. + + + + +XIX + + +The soul's Rialto hath its merchandize; +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, Beloved, 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. + + + + +XX + + +Beloved, my Beloved, 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. + + + + +XXI + + +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. +Beloved, 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. + + + + +XXII + + +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 curved 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, Beloved,--where the unfit +Contrarious moods of men recoil away +And isolate pure spirits, and permit +A place to stand and love in for a day, +With darkness and the death-hour rounding it. + + + + +XXIII + + +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 Beloved, 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! + + + + +XXIV + + +Let the world's sharpness like a clasping knife +Shut in upon itself 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. + + + + +XXV + + +A heavy heart, Beloved, 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 its 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 its own nature does precipitate, +While thine doth close above it, mediating +Betwixt the stars and the unaccomplished fate. + + + + +XXVI + + +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, +Beloved, 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. + + + + +XXVII + + +My own Beloved, 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. + + + + +XXVIII + + +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 its 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! + + + + +XXIX + + +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. + + + + +XXX + + +I see thine image through my tears to-night, +And yet to-day I saw thee smiling. How +Refer the cause?--Beloved, 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. +Beloved, 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? + + + + +XXXI + + +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 dove-like 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. + + + + +XXXII + + +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. + + + + +XXXIII + + +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 plied, +To glance up in some face that proved me dear +With the look of its 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. + + + + +XXXIV + + +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. + + + + +XXXV + + +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 thy heart wide, +And fold within, the wet wings of thy dove. + + + + +XXXVI + + +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 enclasped 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. + + + + +XXXVII + + +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. + + + + +XXXVIII + + +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 its "O, 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." + + + + +XXXIX + + +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! + + + + +XL + + +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 Beloved! thou canst wait +Through sorrow and sickness, to bring souls to touch, +And think it soon when others cry "Too late." + + + + +XLI + + +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 its 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 harken 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! + + + + +XLII + + +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! + + + + +XLIII + + +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. + + + + +XLIV + + +Beloved, 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. + + + + + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SONNETS FROM THE PORTUGUESE *** + +***** This file should be named 2002.txt or 2002.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.net/2/0/0/2002/ + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.04.29.93*END* + + + + + +This etext was prepared by David Price, email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk +from the 1906 Caradoc Press edition. + + + + + +SONNETS FROM THE PORTUGUESE + + + + +INDEX OF FIRST LINES + +I I thought once how Theocritus had sung +II But only three in all God's universe +III Unlike are we, unlike, O princely Heart! +IV Thou hast thy calling to some palace-floor +V I lift my heavy heart up solemnly +VI Go from me. Yet I feel that I shall stand +VII The face of all the world is changed, I think +VIII What can I give thee back, O liberal +IX Can it be right to give what I can give? +X Yet, love, mere love, is beautiful indeed +XI And therefore if to love can be desert +XII Indeed this very love which is my boast +XIII And wilt thou have me fashion into speech +XIV If thou must love me, let it be for nought +XV Accuse me not, beseech thee, that I wear +XVI And yet, because thou overcomest so +XVII My poet thou canst touch on all the notes +XVIII I never gave a lock of hair away +XIX The soul's Rialto hath its merchandize +XX Beloved, my beloved, when I think +XXI Say over again, and yet once over again +XXII When our two souls stand up erect and strong +XXIII Is it indeed so? If I lay here dead +XXIV Let the world's sharpness like a clasping knife +XXV A heavy heart, Beloved, have I borne +XXVI I lived with visions for my company +XXVII My own Beloved, who hast lifted me +XXVIII My letters! all dead paper, mute and white! +XXIX I think of thee!--my thoughts do twine and bud +XXX I see thine image through my tears to-night +XXXI Thou comest! all is said without a word +XXXII The first time that the sun rose on thine oath +XXXIII Yes, call me by my pet-name! let me hear +XXXIV With the same heart, I said, I'll answer thee +XXXV If I leave all for thee, wilt thou exchange +XXXVI When we met first and loved, I did not build +XXXVII Pardon, oh, pardon, that my soul should make +XXXVIII First time he kissed me, he but only kissed +XXXIX Because thou hast the power and own'st the grace +XL Oh, yes! they love through all this world of ours! +XLI I thank all who have loved me in their hearts +XLII My future will not copy fair my past +XLIII How do I love thee? Let me count the ways +XLIV Beloved, thou hast brought me many flowers + + + + +I + +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." + +II + +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, so as to amerce +My sight from seeing thee,--that if I had died, +The death-weights, 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. + +III + +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. + +IV + +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. + +V + +I lift my heavy heart up solemnly, +As once Electra her sepulchral urn, +And, looking in thine eyes, I over-turn +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 Beloved, will not shield thee so, +That none of all the fires shall scorch and shred +The hair beneath. Stand further off then! go! + +VI + +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 its own grapes. And when I sue +God for myself, He hears that name of thine, +And sees within my eyes the tears of two. + +VII + +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 its 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. + +VIII + +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. + +IX + +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. + +X + +Yet, love, mere love, is beautiful indeed +And worth 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 itself, and show +How that great work of Love enhances Nature's. + +XI + +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 Beloved, 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. + +XII + +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. + +XIII + +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 dropt it at thy feet. I cannot teach +My hand to hold my spirits 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 its grief. + +XIV + +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, Beloved, 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 may'st love on, through love's eternity. + +XV + +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 sits and gazes from above, +Over the rivers to the bitter sea. + +XVI + +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, Beloved, 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! + +XVII + +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. + +XVIII + +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. + +XIX + +The soul's Rialto hath its merchandize; +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 counters part, . . . +The bay crown's shade, Beloved, 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. + +XX + +Beloved, my Beloved, 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. + +XXI + +Say over again, and yet once over again, +That thou dost love me, +Though the word repeated +Should seem a "cuckoo-song," as 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. +Beloved, 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. + +XXII + +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 curved 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, Beloved,--where the unfit +Contrarious moods of men recoil away +And isolate pure spirits, and permit +A place to stand and love in for a day, +With darkness and the death-hour rounding it. + +XXIII + +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 Beloved, 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! + +XXIV + +Let the world's sharpness like a clasping knife +Shut in upon itself 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. + +XXV + +A heavy heart, Beloved, 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 its 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 its own nature does precipitate, +While thine doth close above it, mediating +Betwixt the stars and the unaccomplished fate. + +XXVI + +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, +Beloved, 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. + +XXVII + +My own Beloved, 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, acid 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. + +XXVIII + +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 its 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! + +XXIX + +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, + +XXX + +I see thine image through my tears to-night, +And yet to-day I saw thee smiling. How +Refer the cause?--Beloved, 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. +Beloved, 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? + +XXXI + +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 dove-like 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. + +XXXII + +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. + +XXXIII + +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 plied, +To glance up in some face that proved me dear +With the look of its 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. + +XXXIV + +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. + +XXXV + +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 thy heart wide, +And fold within, the wet wings of thy dove. + +XXXVI + +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 enclasped 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. + +XXXVII + +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. + +XXXVIII + +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 its "O, 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." + +XXXIX + +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! + +XL + +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 Beloved! thou canst wait +Through sorrow and sickness, to bring souls to touch, +And think it soon when others cry "Too late." + +XLI + +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 its 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 harken 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! + +XLII + +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! + +XLIII + +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. + +XLIV + +Beloved, 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. + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg Etext Sonnets from the Portuguese, by Browning + diff --git a/old/snprg10.zip b/old/snprg10.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..cbbb1ae --- /dev/null +++ b/old/snprg10.zip |
