Delphi Poetry Anthology: The World's Greatest Poems (Delphi Poets Series Book 50) (233 page)

Sonnets from the Portuguese XXIII

Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806–1861)

IS it indeed so? If I lay here dead,
Wouldst thou miss any life in losing mine?
And would the sun for thee more coldly shine
Because of grave-damps falling round my head?
I marvelled, my Belovèd, when I read
  
5
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!
  
10
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!

List of Poems in Alphabetical Order

List of Poets in Alphabetical Order

Sonnets from the Portuguese XXIV

Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806–1861)

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 —
5
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
  
10
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.

List of Poems in Alphabetical Order

List of Poets in Alphabetical Order

Sonnets from the Portuguese XXV

Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806–1861)

A HEAVY heart, Belovèd, have I borne
From year to year until I saw thy face,
And sorrow after sorrow took the place
Of all those natural joys as lightly worn
As the stringed pearls, each lifted in its turn
  
5
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
  
10
Deep being! Fast it sinketh, as a thing
Which its own nature doth precipitate,
While thine doth close above it, mediating
Betwixt the stars and the unaccomplished fate.

List of Poems in Alphabetical Order

List of Poets in Alphabetical Order

Sonnets from the Portuguese XXVI

Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806–1861)

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
  
5
Of this world’s dust, their lutes did silent grow,
And I myself grew faint and blind below
Their vanishing eyes. Then THOU didst come — to be,
Belovèd, what they seemed. Their shining fronts,
Their songs, their splendors (better, yet the same,
  
10
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.

List of Poems in Alphabetical Order

List of Poets in Alphabetical Order

Sonnets from the Portuguese XXVII

Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806–1861)

MY own Belovèd, who hast lifted me
From this drear flat of earth where I was thrown,
And, in betwixt the languid ringlets, blown
A life-breath, till the forehead hopefully
Shines out again, as all the angels see,
  
5
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
  
10
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.

List of Poems in Alphabetical Order

List of Poets in Alphabetical Order

Sonnets from the Portuguese XXVIII

Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806–1861)

MY letters! all dead paper, mute and white!
And yet they seem alive and quivering
Against my tremulous hands which lose the string
And let them drop down on my knee to-night.
This said, — he wished to have me in his sight
  
5
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.
  
10
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!

List of Poems in Alphabetical Order

List of Poets in Alphabetical Order

Sonnets from the Portuguese XXIX

Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806–1861)

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
  
5
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
  
10
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.

List of Poems in Alphabetical Order

List of Poets in Alphabetical Order

Sonnets from the Portuguese XXX

Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806–1861)

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
  
5
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
  
10
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?

List of Poems in Alphabetical Order

List of Poets in Alphabetical Order

Sonnets from the Portuguese XXXI

Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806–1861)

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
  
5
In that last doubt! and yet I cannot rue
The sin most, but the occasion — that we two
Should for a moment stand unministered
By a mutual presence. Ah, keep near and close,
Thou dovelike help! and, when my fears would rise,
  
10
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.

List of Poems in Alphabetical Order

List of Poets in Alphabetical Order

Sonnets from the Portuguese XXXII

Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806–1861)

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;
  
5
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.
  
10
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.

List of Poems in Alphabetical Order

List of Poets in Alphabetical Order

Sonnets from the Portuguese XXXIII

Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806–1861)

YES, call me by my pet-name! let me hear
The name I used to run at, when a child,
From innocent play, and leave the cowslips piled,
To glance up in some face that proved me dear
With the look of its eyes. I miss the clear
  
5
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.
  
10
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.

List of Poems in Alphabetical Order

List of Poets in Alphabetical Order