September 12 The Harvard Classics, fifteen minutes a day
Love Letters of Elizabeth Browning
In all literary history there is no happier love story than that of Elizabeth Barrett and Robert Browning. During their secret courtship Miss Barrett sent Browning many beautiful love letters written in verse.
- Browning married Elizabeth Barrett, Sept. 12, 1846.
From the 1930 Reading Guide
Sonnets from the Portuguese
Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Page 923 opens with the last four stanzas of “A Musical Instrument”; the reading starts at the title “Sonnets from the Portuguese” on that page.
Sonnets from the Portuguese
578 I
I THOUGHT once how Theocritus had sungOf the sweet years, the dear and wished-for years,Who each one in a gracious hand appearsTo bear a gift for mortals, old or young:And, as I mused it in its 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 flungA shadow across me. Straightway I was ’ware,So weeping, how a mystic Shape did moveBehind 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.”
579 II
BUT only three in all God’s universeHave heard this word thou hast said,—Himself, besideThee speaking, and me listening! and repliedOne of us... that was God,... and laid the curseSo darkly on my eyelids, as to amerceMy sight from seeing thee,—that if I had died,The deathweights, placed there, would have signifiedLess absolute exclusion. “Nay” is worseFrom 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.
580 III
UNLIKE are we, unlike, O princely Heart!Unlike our uses and our destinies.Our ministering two angels look surpriseOn one another, as they strike athwartTheir wings in passing. Thou, bethink thee, artA guest for queens to social pageantries,With gages from a hundred brighter eyesThan tears even can make mine, to play thy partOf chief musician. What hast thou to doWith looking from the lattice-lights at me,A poor, tired, wandering singer, singing throughThe 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.
581 IV
THOU hast thy calling to some palace-floor,Most gracious singer of high poems! whereThe dancers will break footing, from the careOf watching up thy pregnant lips for more.And dost thou lift this house’s latch too poorFor hand of thine? and canst thou think and bearTo let thy music drop here unawareIn 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 proofOf desolation! there’s a voice withinThat weeps... as thou must sing... alone, aloof.
582 V
I LIFT my heavy heart up solemnly,As once Electra her sepulchral urn,And looking in thine eyes, I overturnThe ashes at thy feet. Behold and seeWhat a great heap of grief lay hid in me,And how the red wild sparkles dimly burnThrough the ashen grayness. If thy foot in scornCould tread them out to darkness utterly,It might be well perhaps. But if insteadThou wait beside me for the wind to blowThe gray dust up,... those laurels on thine head,O my Belovèd, will not shield thee so,That none of all the fires shall scorch and shredThe hair beneath. Stand farther off then! go.
583 VI
Go from me. Yet I feel that I shall standHenceforward in thy shadow. NevermoreAlone upon the threshold of my doorOf individual life, I shall commandThe uses of my soul, nor lift my handSerenely in the sunshine as before,Without the sense of that which I forbore—Thy touch upon the palm. The widest landDoom takes to part us, leaves thy heart in mineWith pulses that beat double. What I doAnd what I dream include thee, as the wineMust taste of its own grapes. And when I sueGod for myself, He hears that name of thine,And sees within my eyes the tears of two.
584 VII
THE face of all the world is changed, I think,Since first I heard the footsteps of thy soulMove still, oh, still, beside me, as they stoleBetwixt me and the dreadful outer brinkOf obvious death, where I, who thought to sink,Was caught up into love, and taught the wholeOf life in a new rhythm. The cup of doleGod gave for baptism, I am fain to drink,And praise its sweetness, Sweet, with thee anear.The names of country, heaven, are changed awayFor where thou art or shalt be, there or here;And this... this lute and song... loved yesterday,(The singing angels know) are only dearBecause thy name moves right in what they say.
585 VIII
WHAT can I give thee back, O liberalAnd princely giver, who hast brought the goldAnd purple of thine heart, unstained, untold,And laid them on the outside of the wallFor such as I to take or leave withal,In unexpected largesse? am I cold,Ungrateful, that for these most manifoldHigh gifts, I render nothing back at all?Not so; not cold,—but very poor instead.Ask God who knows. For frequent tears have runThe colors from my life, and left so deadAnd pale a stuff, it were not fitly doneTo give the same as pillow to thy head.Go farther! let it serve to trample on.
586 IX
CAN it be right to give what I can give?To let thee sit beneath the fall of tearsAs salt as mine, and hear the sighing yearsRe-sighing on my lips renunciativeThrough those infrequent smiles which fail to liveFor 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, mustBe 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.
587 X
YET, love, mere love, is beautiful indeedAnd worthy of acceptation. Fire is bright,Let temple burn, or flax; an equal lightLeaps in the flame from cedar-plank or weed:And love is fire. And when I say at needI love thee... mark!... I love thee—in thy sightI stand transfigured, glorified aright,With conscience of the new rays that proceedOut of my face toward thine. There’s nothing lowIn love, when love the lowest: meanest creaturesWho love God, God accepts while loving so.And what I feel, across the inferior featuresOf what I am, doth flash itself, and showHow that great work of Love enhances Nature’s.
588 XI
AND therefore if to love can be desert,I am not all unworthy. Cheeks as paleAs these you see, and trembling knees that failTo bear the burden of a heavy heart,—This weary minstrel-life that once was girtTo climb Aornus, and can scarce availTo pipe now ’gainst the valley nightingaleA melancholy music,—why advertTo these things? O Belovèd, it is plainI am not of thy worth nor for thy place!And yet, because I love thee, I obtainFrom 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.
589 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 enowTo 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 thouHadst set me an example, shown me how,When first thine earnest eyes with mine were crossed,And love called love. And thus, I cannot speakOf 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.
590 XIII
AND wilt thou have me fashion into speechThe 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 teachMy hand to hold my spirit so far offFrom myself—me—that I should bring thee proofIn words, of love hid in me out of reach.Nay, let the silence of my womanhoodCommend 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.
591 XIV
IF thou must love me, let it be for noughtExcept for love’s sake only. Do not say“I love her for her smile—her look—her wayOf speaking gently,—for a trick of thoughtThat falls in well with mine, and certes broughtA sense of pleasant ease on such a day”—For these things in themselves, Belovèd, mayBe changed, or change for thee,—and love, so wrought,May be unwrought so. Neither love me forThine own dear pity’s wiping my cheeks dry,—A creature might forget to weep, who boreThy comfort long, and lose thy love thereby!But love me for love’s sake, that evermoreThou mayst love on, through love’s eternity.
592 XV
ACCUSE me not, beseech thee, that I wearToo calm and sad a face in front of thine;For we two look two ways, and cannot shineWith 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 airWere most impossible failure, if I stroveTo 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.
593 XVI
AND yet, because thou overcomest so,Because thou art more noble and like a king,Thou canst prevail against my fears and flingThy purple round me, till my heart shall growToo close against thine heart henceforth to knowHow it shook when alone. Why, conqueringMay prove as lordly and complete a thingIn lifting upward, as in crushing low!And as a vanquished soldier yields his swordTo one who lifts him from the bloody earth,Even so, Belovèd, I at last record,Here ends my strife. If thou invite me forth,I rise above abasement at the word.Make thy love larger to enlarge my worth.
594 XVII
MY poet, thou canst touch on all the notesGod set between His After and Before,And strike up and strike off the general roarOf the rushing worlds a melody that floatsIn a serene air purely. AntidotesOf medicated music, answering forMankind’s forlornest uses, thou canst pourFrom thence into their ears. God’s will devotesThine 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 fineSad 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.
595 XVIII
I NEVER gave a lock of hair awayTo 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 mayNow shade on two pale cheeks the mark of tears,Taught drooping from the head that hangs asideThrough sorrow’s trick. I thought the funeral-shearsWould 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.
596 XIX
THE soul’s Rialto hath its merchandise;I barter curl for curl upon that mart,And from my poet’s forehead to my heartReceive this lock which outweighs argosies,—As purply black, as erst to Pindar’s eyesThe dim purpureal tresses gloomed athwartThe nine white Muse-brows. For this counterpart,The bay-crown’s shade, Belovèd, I surmise,Still lingers on thy curl, it is so black!Thus, with a fillet of smooth-kissing breath,I tie the shadows safe from gliding back,And lay the gift where nothing hindereth;Here on my heart, as on thy brow, to lackNo natural heat till mine grows cold in death.
597 XX
BELOVÈD, my Belovèd, when I thinkThat thou wast in the world a year ago,What time I sat alone here in the snowAnd saw no footprint, heard the silence sinkNo moment at thy voice, but, link by link,Went counting all my chains as if that soThey never could fall off at any blowStruck by thy possible hand,—why, thus I drinkOf life’s great cup of wonder! Wonderful,Never to feel thee thrill the day or nightWith personal act or speech,—nor ever cullSome prescience of thee with the blossoms whiteThou sawest growing! Atheists are as dull,Who cannot guess God’s presence out of sight.
598 XXI
SAY over again, and yet once over again,That thou dost love me. Though the word repeatedShould seem “a cuckoo-song,” as thou dost treat it,Remember, never to the hill or plain,Valley and wood, without her cuckoo-strainComes the fresh Spring in all her green completed.Belovèd, I, amid the darkness greetedBy a doubtful spirit-voice, in that doubt’s painCry, “Speak once more—thou lovest!” Who can fearToo 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—tollThe silver iterance!—only minding, Dear,To love me also in silence with thy soul.
599 XXII
WHEN our two souls stand up erect and strong,Face to face, silent, drawing nigh and nigher,Until the lengthening wings break into fireAt either curvèd point,—what bitter wrongCan the earth do to us, that we should not longBe here contented? Think. In mounting higher,The angels would press on us and aspireTo drop some golden orb of perfect songInto our deep, dear silence. Let us stayRather on earth, Belovèd,—where the unfitContrarious moods of men recoil awayAnd isolate pure spirits, and permitA place to stand and love in for a day,With darkness and the death-hour rounding it.
600 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 shineBecause of grave-damps falling round my head?I marvelled, my Belovèd, when I readThy thought so in the letter. I am thine—But... so much to thee? Can I pour thy wineWhile my hands tremble? Then my soul, insteadOf 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 exchangeMy near sweet view of Heaven, for earth with thee!
Sonnet XXIII ends on page 932; XXIV begins low on that page and runs on past the assigned pages, so the reading stops before it.
Volume 41, pages 923–932 · See the scanned page on archive.org
This is the reading for September 12 in Fifteen Minutes a Day: The Reading Guide (1930 edition), page 74. There the assignment reads “Vol. 41, pp. 923–932.” Read it in the guide.