Sonnets from the Portuguese
By
Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Transcription, correction, editorial commentary, and markup by Students and Staff of the University of Virginia, Humzah Syed
I
1I thought once how Theocritus had sung
2Of the sweet years, the dear and wished-for years,
3Who each one in a gracious hand appears
4To bear a gift for mortals, old or young:
5And, as I mused it in his antique tongue,
6I saw, in gradual vision through my tears,
7The sweet, sad years, the melancholy years,
8Those of my own life, who by turns had flung
9A shadow across me. Straightway I was ’ware,
10So weeping, how a mystic Shape did move
11Behind me, and drew me backward by the hair;
12And a voice said in mastery, while I strove,—
13“Guess now who holds thee!”—“Death,” I said, But, there,
14The silver answer rang, “Not Death, but Love.”
II
1But only three in all God’s universe
2Have heard this word thou hast said,—Himself, beside
3Thee speaking, and me listening! and replied
4One of us . . . that was God, . . . and laid the curse
5So darkly on my eyelids, as to amerce
6My sight from seeing thee,—that if I had died,
7The death-weights, placed there, would have signified
8Less absolute exclusion. “Nay” is worse
9From God than from all others, O my friend!
10Men could not part us with their worldly jars,
11Nor the seas change us, nor the tempests bend;
12Our hands would touch for all the mountain-bars:
13And, heaven being rolled between us at the end,
14We should but vow the faster for the stars.
III
29Unlike are we, unlike, O princely Heart!
30Unlike our uses and our destinies.
31Our ministering two angels look surprise
32On one another, as they strike athwart
33Their wings in passing. Thou, bethink thee, art
34A guest for queens to social pageantries,
35With gages from a hundred brighter eyes
36Than tears even can make mine, to play thy part
37Of chief musician. What hast thou to do
38With looking from the lattice-lights at me,
39A poor, tired, wandering singer, singing through
40The dark, and leaning up a cypress tree?
41The chrism is on thine head,—on mine, the dew,—
42And Death must dig the level where these agree.
IV
43Thou hast thy calling to some palace-floor,
44Most gracious singer of high poems! where
45The dancers will break footing, from the care
46Of watching up thy pregnant lips for more.
47And dost thou lift this house’s latch too poor
48For hand of thine? and canst thou think and bear
49To let thy music drop here unaware
50In folds of golden fulness at my door?
51Look up and see the casement broken in,
52The bats and owlets builders in the roof!
53My cricket chirps against thy mandolin.
54Hush, call no echo up in further proof
55Of desolation! there’s a voice within
56That weeps . . . as thou must sing . . . alone, aloof.
V
57I lift my heavy heart up solemnly,
58As once Electra her sepulchral urn,
59And, looking in thine eyes, I over-turn
60The ashes at thy feet. Behold and see
61What a great heap of grief lay hid in me,
62And how the red wild sparkles dimly burn
63Through the ashen greyness. If thy foot in scorn
64Could tread them out to darkness utterly,
65It might be well perhaps. But if instead
66Thou wait beside me for the wind to blow
67The grey dust up, . . . those laurels on thine head,
68O my Belovëd, will not shield thee so,
69That none of all the fires shall scorch and shred
70The hair beneath. Stand further off then! go!
VI
71Go from me. Yet I feel that I shall stand
72Henceforward in thy shadow. Nevermore
73Alone upon the threshold of my door
74Of individual life, I shall command
75The uses of my soul, nor lift my hand
76Serenely in the sunshine as before,
77Without the sense of that which I forbore—
78Thy touch upon the palm. The widest land
79Doom takes to part us, leaves thy heart in mine
80With pulses that beat double. What I do
81And what I dream include thee, as the wine
82Must taste of its own grapes. And when I sue
83God for myself, He hears that name of thine,
84And sees within my eyes the tears of two.
VII
85The face of all the world is changed, I think,
86Since first I heard the footsteps of thy soul
87Move still, oh, still, beside me, as they stole
88Betwixt me and the dreadful outer brink
89Of obvious death, where I, who thought to sink,
90Was caught up into love, and taught the whole
91Of life in a new rhythm. The cup of dole
92God gave for baptism, I am fain to drink,
93And praise its sweetness, Sweet, with thee anear.
94The names of country, heaven, are changed away
95For where thou art or shalt be, there or here;
96And this . . . this lute and song . . . loved yesterday,
97(The singing angels know) are only dear
98Because thy name moves right in what they say.
VIII
99What can I give thee back, O liberal
100And princely giver, who hast brought the gold
101And purple of thine heart, unstained, untold,
102And laid them on the outside of the wall
103For such as I to take or leave withal,
104In unexpected largesse? am I cold,
105Ungrateful, that for these most manifold
106High gifts, I render nothing back at all?
107Not so; not cold,—but very poor instead.
108Ask God who knows. For frequent tears have run
109The colours from my life, and left so dead
110And pale a stuff, it were not fitly done
111To give the same as pillow to thy head.
112Go farther! let it serve to trample on.
X
127Yet, love, mere love, is beautiful indeed
128And worthy of acceptation. Fire is bright,
129Let temple burn, or flax; an equal light
130Leaps in the flame from cedar-plank or weed:
131And love is fire. And when I say at need
132I love thee . . . mark! . . . I love thee—in thy sight
133I stand transfigured, glorified aright,
134With conscience of the new rays that proceed
135Out of my face toward thine. There’s nothing low
136In love, when love the lowest: meanest creatures
137Who love God, God accepts while loving so.
138And what I feel, across the inferior features
139Of what I am, doth flash itself, and show
140How that great work of Love enhances Nature’s.
XI
141And therefore if to love can be desert,
142I am not all unworthy. Cheeks as pale
143As these you see, and trembling knees that fail
144To bear the burden of a heavy heart,—
145This weary minstrel-life that once was girt
146To climb Aornus, and can scarce avail
147To pipe now ’gainst the valley nightingale
148A melancholy music,—why advert
149To these things? O Belovëd, it is plain
150I am not of thy worth nor for thy place!
151And yet, because I love thee, I obtain
152From that same love this vindicating grace
153To live on still in love, and yet in vain,—
154To bless thee, yet renounce thee to thy face.
XII
155Indeed this very love which is my boast,
156And which, when rising up from breast to brow,
157Doth crown me with a ruby large enow
158To draw men’s eyes and prove the inner cost,—
159This love even, all my worth, to the uttermost,
160I should not love withal, unless that thou
161Hadst set me an example, shown me how,
162When first thine earnest eyes with mine were crossed,
163And love called love. And thus, I cannot speak
164Of love even, as a good thing of my own:
165Thy soul hath snatched up mine all faint and weak,
166And placed it by thee on a golden throne,—
167And that I love (O soul, we must be meek!)
168Is by thee only, whom I love alone.
XIII
169And wilt thou have me fashion into speech
170The love I bear thee, finding words enough,
171And hold the torch out, while the winds are rough,
172Between our faces, to cast light on each?—
173I drop it at thy feet. I cannot teach
174My hand to hold my spirits so far off
175From myself—me—that I should bring thee proof
176In words, of love hid in me out of reach.
177Nay, let the silence of my womanhood
178Commend my woman-love to thy belief,—
179Seeing that I stand unwon, however wooed,
180And rend the garment of my life, in brief,
181By a most dauntless, voiceless fortitude,
182Lest one touch of this heart convey its grief.
XIV
183If thou must love me, let it be for nought
184Except for love’s sake only. Do not say
185“I love her for her smile—her look—her way
186Of speaking gently,—for a trick of thought
187That falls in well with mine, and certes brought
188A sense of pleasant ease on such a day”—
189For these things in themselves, Belovëd, may
190Be changed, or change for thee,—and love, so wrought,
191May be unwrought so. Neither love me for
192Thine own dear pity’s wiping my cheeks dry,
193A creature might forget to weep, who bore
194Thy comfort long, and lose thy love thereby!
195But love me for love’s sake, that evermore
196Thou mayst love on, through love’s eternity.
XV
197Accuse me not, beseech thee, that I wear
198Too calm and sad a face in front of thine;
199For we two look two ways, and cannot shine
200With the same sunlight on our brow and hair.
201On me thou lookest with no doubting care,
202As on a bee shut in a crystalline;
203Since sorrow hath shut me safe in love’s divine,
204And to spread wing and fly in the outer air
205Were most impossible failure, if I strove
206To fail so. But I look on thee—on thee—
207Beholding, besides love, the end of love,
208Hearing oblivion beyond memory!
209As one who sits and gazes from above,
210Over the rivers to the bitter sea.
XVI
211And yet, because thou overcomest so,
212Because thou art more noble and like a king,
213Thou canst prevail against my fears and fling
214Thy purple round me, till my heart shall grow
215Too close against thine heart henceforth to know
216How it shook when alone. Why, conquering
217May prove as lordly and complete a thing
218In lifting upward as in laying low!
219And as a vanquished soldier yields his sword
220To one who lifts him from the bloody earth,
221Even so, Belovëd, I at last record,
222Here ends my strife. If thou invite me forth,
223I rise above abasement at the word.
224Make thy love larger to enlarge my worth!
XVII
225My poet, thou canst touch on all the notes
226God set between His After and Before,
227And strike up and strike off the general roar
228Of the rushing worlds a melody that floats
229In a serene air purely. Antidotes
230Of medicated music, answering for
231Mankind’s forlornest uses, thou canst pour
232From thence into their ears. God’s will devotes
233Thine to such ends, and mine to wait on thine.
234How, Dearest, wilt thou have me for most use?
235A hope, to sing by gladly? or a fine
236Sad memory, with thy songs to interfuse?
237A shade, in which to sing—of palm or pine?
238A grave, on which to rest from singing? Choose.
XVIII
239I never gave a lock of hair away
240To a man, Dearest, except this to thee,
241Which now upon my fingers thoughtfully
242I ring out to the full brown length and say
243“Take it.” My day of youth went yesterday;
244My hair no longer bounds to my foot’s glee,
245Nor plant I it from rose- or myrtle-tree,
246As girls do, any more: it only may
247Now shade on two pale cheeks the mark of tears,
248Taught drooping from the head that hangs aside
249Through sorrow’s trick. I thought the funeral-shears
250Would take this first, but Love is justified,—
251Take it thou,—finding pure, from all those years,
252The kiss my mother left here when she died.
XIX
253The soul’s Rialto hath its merchandize;
254I barter curl for curl upon that mart,
255And from my poet’s forehead to my heart
256Receive this lock which outweighs argosies,—
257As purply black, as erst to Pindar’s eyes
258The dim purpureal tresses gloomed athwart
259The nine white Muse-brows. For this counterpart, . . .
260The bay crown’s shade, Belovëd, I surmise,
261Still lingers on thy curl, it is so black!
262Thus, with a fillet of smooth-kissing breath,
263I tie the shadows safe from gliding back,
264And lay the gift where nothing hindereth;
265Here on my heart, as on thy brow, to lack
266No natural heat till mine grows cold in death.
XX
267Belovëd, my Belovëd, when I think
268That thou wast in the world a year ago,
269What time I sat alone here in the snow
270And saw no footprint, heard the silence sink
271No moment at thy voice, but, link by link,
272Went counting all my chains as if that so
273They never could fall off at any blow
274Struck by thy possible hand,—why, thus I drink
275Of life’s great cup of wonder! Wonderful,
276Never to feel thee thrill the day or night
277With personal act or speech,—nor ever cull
278Some prescience of thee with the blossoms white
279Thou sawest growing! Atheists are as dull,
280Who cannot guess God’s presence out of sight.
XXI
281Say over again, and yet once over again,
282That thou dost love me. Though the word repeated
283Should seem a “cuckoo-song,” as thou dost treat it,
284Remember, never to the hill or plain,
285Valley and wood, without her cuckoo-strain
286Comes the fresh Spring in all her green completed.
287Belovëd, I, amid the darkness greeted
288By a doubtful spirit-voice, in that doubt’s pain
289Cry, “Speak once more—thou lovest!” Who can fear
290Too many stars, though each in heaven shall roll,
291Too many flowers, though each shall crown the year?
292Say thou dost love me, love me, love me—toll
293The silver iterance!—only minding, Dear,
294To love me also in silence with thy soul.
XXII
295When our two souls stand up erect and strong,
296Face to face, silent, drawing nigh and nigher,
297Until the lengthening wings break into fire
298At either curvëd point,—what bitter wrong
299Can the earth do to us, that we should not long
300Be here contented? Think! In mounting higher,
301The angels would press on us and aspire
302To drop some golden orb of perfect song
303Into our deep, dear silence. Let us stay
304Rather on earth, Belovëd,—where the unfit
305Contrarious moods of men recoil away
306And isolate pure spirits, and permit
307A place to stand and love in for a day,
308With darkness and the death-hour rounding it.
XXIII
309Is it indeed so? If I lay here dead,
310Wouldst thou miss any life in losing mine?
311And would the sun for thee more coldly shine
312Because of grave-damps falling round my head?
313I marvelled, my Belovëd, when I read
314Thy thought so in the letter. I am thine—
315But . . . so much to thee? Can I pour thy wine
316While my hands tremble? Then my soul, instead
317Of dreams of death, resumes life’s lower range.
318Then, love me, Love! look on me—breathe on me!
319As brighter ladies do not count it strange,
320For love, to give up acres and degree,
321I yield the grave for thy sake, and exchange
322My near sweet view of heaven, for earth with thee!
XXIV
323Let the world’s sharpness like a clasping knife
324Shut in upon itself and do no harm
325In this close hand of Love, now soft and warm,
326And let us hear no sound of human strife
327After the click of the shutting. Life to life—
328I lean upon thee, Dear, without alarm,
329And feel as safe as guarded by a charm
330Against the stab of worldlings, who if rife
331Are weak to injure. Very whitely still
332The lilies of our lives may reassure
333Their blossoms from their roots, accessible
334Alone to heavenly dews that drop not fewer;
335Growing straight, out of man’s reach, on the hill.
336God only, who made us rich, can make us poor.
XXV
337A heavy heart, Belovëd, have I borne
338From year to year until I saw thy face,
339And sorrow after sorrow took the place
340Of all those natural joys as lightly worn
341As the stringed pearls, each lifted in its turn
342By a beating heart at dance-time. Hopes apace
343Were changed to long despairs, till God’s own grace
344Could scarcely lift above the world forlorn
345My heavy heart. Then thou didst bid me bring
346And let it drop adown thy calmly great
347Deep being! Fast it sinketh, as a thing
348Which its own nature does precipitate,
349While thine doth close above it, mediating
350Betwixt the stars and the unaccomplished fate.
XXVI
351I lived with visions for my company
352Instead of men and women, years ago,
353And found them gentle mates, nor thought to know
354A sweeter music than they played to me.
355But soon their trailing purple was not free
356Of this world’s dust, their lutes did silent grow,
357And I myself grew faint and blind below
358Their vanishing eyes. Then thou didst come—to be,
359Belovëd, what they seemed. Their shining fronts,
360Their songs, their splendours, (better, yet the same,
361As river-water hallowed into fonts)
362Met in thee, and from out thee overcame
363My soul with satisfaction of all wants:
364Because God’s gifts put man’s best dreams to shame.
XXVII
365My own Belovëd, who hast lifted me
366From this drear flat of earth where I was thrown,
367And, in betwixt the languid ringlets, blown
368A life-breath, till the forehead hopefully
369Shines out again, as all the angels see,
370Before thy saving kiss! My own, my own,
371Who camest to me when the world was gone,
372And I who looked for only God, found thee!
373I find thee; I am safe, and strong, and glad.
374As one who stands in dewless asphodel,
375Looks backward on the tedious time he had
376In the upper life,—so I, with bosom-swell,
377Make witness, here, between the good and bad,
378That Love, as strong as Death, retrieves as well.
XXVIII
379My letters! all dead paper, mute and white!
380And yet they seem alive and quivering
381Against my tremulous hands which loose the string
382And let them drop down on my knee to-night.
383This said,—he wished to have me in his sight
384Once, as a friend: this fixed a day in spring
385To come and touch my hand . . . a simple thing,
386Yet I wept for it!—this, . . . the paper’s light . . .
387Said, Dear I love thee; and I sank and quailed
388As if God’s future thundered on my past.
389This said, I am thine—and so its ink has paled
390With lying at my heart that beat too fast.
391And this . . . O Love, thy words have ill availed
392If, what this said, I dared repeat at last!
XXIX
393I think of thee!—my thoughts do twine and bud
394About thee, as wild vines, about a tree,
395Put out broad leaves, and soon there’s nought to see
396Except the straggling green which hides the wood.
397Yet, O my palm-tree, be it understood
398I will not have my thoughts instead of thee
399Who art dearer, better! Rather, instantly
400Renew thy presence; as a strong tree should,
401Rustle thy boughs and set thy trunk all bare,
402And let these bands of greenery which insphere thee,
403Drop heavily down,—burst, shattered everywhere!
404Because, in this deep joy to see and hear thee
405And breathe within thy shadow a new air,
406I do not think of thee—I am too near thee.
XXX
407I see thine image through my tears to-night,
408And yet to-day I saw thee smiling. How
409Refer the cause?—Belovëd, is it thou
410Or I, who makes me sad? The acolyte
411Amid the chanted joy and thankful rite
412May so fall flat, with pale insensate brow,
413On the altar-stair. I hear thy voice and vow,
414Perplexed, uncertain, since thou art out of sight,
415As he, in his swooning ears, the choir’s amen.
416Belovëd, dost thou love? or did I see all
417The glory as I dreamed, and fainted when
418Too vehement light dilated my ideal,
419For my soul’s eyes? Will that light come again,
420As now these tears come—falling hot and real?
XXXI
421Thou comest! all is said without a word.
422I sit beneath thy looks, as children do
423In the noon-sun, with souls that tremble through
424Their happy eyelids from an unaverred
425Yet prodigal inward joy. Behold, I erred
426In that last doubt! and yet I cannot rue
427The sin most, but the occasion—that we two
428Should for a moment stand unministered
429By a mutual presence. Ah, keep near and close,
430Thou dove-like help! and when my fears would rise,
431With thy broad heart serenely interpose:
432Brood down with thy divine sufficiencies
433These thoughts which tremble when bereft of those,
434Like callow birds left desert to the skies.
XXXII
435The first time that the sun rose on thine oath
436To love me, I looked forward to the moon
437To slacken all those bonds which seemed too soon
438And quickly tied to make a lasting troth.
439Quick-loving hearts, I thought, may quickly loathe;
440And, looking on myself, I seemed not one
441For such man’s love!—more like an out-of-tune
442Worn viol, a good singer would be wroth
443To spoil his song with, and which, snatched in haste,
444Is laid down at the first ill-sounding note.
445I did not wrong myself so, but I placed
446A wrong on thee. For perfect strains may float
447’Neath master-hands, from instruments defaced,—
448And great souls, at one stroke, may do and doat.
XXXIII
449Yes, call me by my pet-name! let me hear
450The name I used to run at, when a child,
451From innocent play, and leave the cowslips plied,
452To glance up in some face that proved me dear
453With the look of its eyes. I miss the clear
454Fond voices which, being drawn and reconciled
455Into the music of Heaven’s undefiled,
456Call me no longer. Silence on the bier,
457While I call God—call God!—so let thy mouth
458Be heir to those who are now exanimate.
459Gather the north flowers to complete the south,
460And catch the early love up in the late.
461Yes, call me by that name,—and I, in truth,
462With the same heart, will answer and not wait.
XXXIV
463With the same heart, I said, I’ll answer thee
464As those, when thou shalt call me by my name—
465Lo, the vain promise! is the same, the same,
466Perplexed and ruffled by life’s strategy?
467When called before, I told how hastily
468I dropped my flowers or brake off from a game.
469To run and answer with the smile that came
470At play last moment, and went on with me
471Through my obedience. When I answer now,
472I drop a grave thought, break from solitude;
473Yet still my heart goes to thee—ponder how—
474Not as to a single good, but all my good!
475Lay thy hand on it, best one, and allow
476That no child’s foot could run fast as this blood.
XXXV
477If I leave all for thee, wilt thou exchange
478And be all to me? Shall I never miss
479Home-talk and blessing and the common kiss
480That comes to each in turn, nor count it strange,
481When I look up, to drop on a new range
482Of walls and floors, home than this?
483Nay, wilt thou fill that place by me which is
484Filled by dead eyes too tender to know change
485That’s hardest. If to conquer love, has tried,
486To conquer grief, tries more, as all things prove,
487For grief indeed is love and grief beside.
488Alas, I have grieved so I am hard to love.
489Yet love me—wilt thou? Open thy heart wide,
490And fold within, the wet wings of thy dove.
XXXVI
491When we met first and loved, I did not build
492Upon the event with marble. Could it mean
493To last, a love set pendulous between
494Sorrow and sorrow? Nay, I rather thrilled,
495Distrusting every light that seemed to gild
496The onward path, and feared to overlean
497A finger even. And, though I have grown serene
498And strong since then, I think that God has willed
499A still renewable fear . . . O love, O troth . . .
500Lest these enclaspëd hands should never hold,
501This mutual kiss drop down between us both
502As an unowned thing, once the lips being cold.
503And Love, be false! if he, to keep one oath,
504Must lose one joy, by his life’s star foretold.
XXXVII
505Pardon, oh, pardon, that my soul should make
506Of all that strong divineness which I know
507For thine and thee, an image only so
508Formed of the sand, and fit to shift and break.
509It is that distant years which did not take
510Thy sovranty, recoiling with a blow,
511Have forced my swimming brain to undergo
512Their doubt and dread, and blindly to forsake
513Thy purity of likeness and distort
514Thy worthiest love to a worthless counterfeit.
515As if a shipwrecked Pagan, safe in port,
516His guardian sea-god to commemorate,
517Should set a sculptured porpoise, gills a-snort
518And vibrant tail, within the temple-gate.
XXXVIII
519First time he kissed me, he but only kissed
520The fingers of this hand wherewith I write;
521And ever since, it grew more clean and white.
522Slow to world-greetings, quick with its “O, list,”
523When the angels speak. A ring of amethyst
524I could not wear here, plainer to my sight,
525Than that first kiss. The second passed in height
526The first, and sought the forehead, and half missed,
527Half falling on the hair. O beyond meed!
528That was the chrism of love, which love’s own crown,
529With sanctifying sweetness, did precede
530The third upon my lips was folded down
531In perfect, purple state; since when, indeed,
532I have been proud and said, “My love, my own.”
XXXIX
533Because thou hast the power and own’st the grace
534To look through and behind this mask of me,
535(Against which, years have beat thus blanchingly,
536With their rains,) and behold my soul’s true face,
537The dim and weary witness of life’s race,—
538Because thou hast the faith and love to see,
539Through that same soul’s distracting lethargy,
540The patient angel waiting for a place
541In the new Heavens,—because nor sin nor woe,
542Nor God’s infliction, nor death’s neighbourhood,
543Nor all which others viewing, turn to go,
544Nor all which makes me tired of all, self-viewed,—
545Nothing repels thee, . . . Dearest, teach me so
546To pour out gratitude, as thou dost, good!
XL
547Oh, yes! they love through all this world of ours!
548I will not gainsay love, called love forsooth:
549I have heard love talked in my early youth,
550And since, not so long back but that the flowers
551Then gathered, smell still. Mussulmans and Giaours
552Throw kerchiefs at a smile, and have no ruth
553For any weeping. Polypheme’s white tooth
554Slips on the nut if, after frequent showers,
555The shell is over-smooth,—and not so much
556Will turn the thing called love, aside to hate
557Or else to oblivion. But thou art not such
558A lover, my Belovëd! thou canst wait
559Through sorrow and sickness, to bring souls to touch,
560And think it soon when others cry “Too late.”
XLI
561I thank all who have loved me in their hearts,
562With thanks and love from mine. Deep thanks to all
563Who paused a little near the prison-wall
564To hear my music in its louder parts
565Ere they went onward, each one to the mart’s
566Or temple’s occupation, beyond call.
567But thou, who, in my voice’s sink and fall
568When the sob took it, thy divinest Art’s
569Own instrument didst drop down at thy foot
570To harken what I said between my tears, . . .
571Instruct me how to thank thee! Oh, to shoot
572My soul’s full meaning into future years,
573That they should lend it utterance, and salute
574Love that endures, from life that disappears!
XLII
575My future will not copy fair my past—
576I wrote that once; and thinking at my side
577My ministering life-angel justified
578The word by his appealing look upcast
579To the white throne of God, I turned at last,
580And there, instead, saw thee, not unallied
581To angels in thy soul! Then I, long tried
582By natural ills, received the comfort fast,
583While budding, at thy sight, my pilgrim’s staff
584Gave out green leaves with morning dews impearled.
585I seek no copy now of life’s first half:
586Leave here the pages with long musing curled,
587And write me new my future’s epigraph,
588New angel mine, unhoped for in the world!
XLIII
589How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
590I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
591My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
592For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.
593I love thee to the level of everyday’s
594Most quiet need, by sun and candlelight.
595I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;
596I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.
597I love thee with the passion put to use
598In my old griefs, and with my childhood’s faith.
599I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
600With my lost saints,—I love thee with the breath,
601Smiles, tears, of all my life!—and, if God choose,
602I shall but love thee better after death.
XLIV
603Belovëd, thou hast brought me many flowers
604Plucked in the garden, all the summer through,
605And winter, and it seemed as if they grew
606In this close room, nor missed the sun and showers.
607So, in the like name of that love of ours,
608Take back these thoughts which here unfolded too,
609And which on warm and cold days I withdrew
610From my heart’s ground. Indeed, those beds and bowers
611Be overgrown with bitter weeds and rue,
612And wait thy weeding; yet here’s eglantine,
613Here’s ivy!—take them, as I used to do
614Thy flowers, and keep them where they shall not pine.
615Instruct thine eyes to keep their colours true,
616And tell thy soul, their roots are left in mine.