Sonnets from the Portuguese quotes

Straightway I was ’ware, So weeping, how a mystic Shape did move Behind me, and drew me backward by the hair; And a voice said in mastery, while I strove: “Guess now who holds thee!”—“Death!” I said. But there,

The silver answer rang: “Not Death, but Love.”

But only three in all God’s universe Have heard this word thou hast said—Himself, beside Thee speaking, and me listening!

“Nay” is worse From God than from all others, O my friend! Men could not part us with their worldly jars, Nor the seas change us, nor the tempests bend: Our hands would touch for all the mountain-bars—

And, heaven being rolled between us at the end, We should but vow the faster for the stars.

Unlike are we, unlike, O princely Heart! Unlike our uses and our destinies. Our ministering two angels look surprise On one another, as they strike athwart Their wings in passing.

Men could not part us with their worldly jars, Nor the seas change us, nor the tempests bend: Our hands would touch for all the mountain-bars— And, heaven being rolled between us at the end, We should but vow the faster for the stars.

Unlike are we, unlike, O princely Heart!

Unlike our uses and our destinies. Our ministering two angels look surprise On one another, as they strike athwart Their wings in passing.

What hast thou to do With looking from the lattice-lights at me, A poor, tired, wandering singer, singing through The dark, and leaning up a cypress tree? The chrism is on thine head—on mine, the dew—

And Death must dig the level where these agree.

Thou hast thy calling to some palace-floor, Most gracious singer of high poems! where The dancers will break footing, from the care Of watching up thy pregnant lips for more. And dost thou lift this house’s latch too poor For hand of thine?

and canst thou think and bear To let thy music drop here unaware In folds of golden fullness 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.

Look up and see the casement broken in, The bats and owlets builders in the roof! My cricket chirps against thy mandolin. Hush! call no echo up in further proof Of desolation! there’s a voice within That weeps as—thou must sing—alone, aloof.

I lift my heavy heart up solemnly, As once Electra her sepulchral urn,

And, looking in thine eyes, I overturn The ashes at thy feet. Behold and see What a great heap of grief lay hid in me, And how the red wild sparkles dimly burn Through the ashen greyness.

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.

Go from me. Yet I feel that I shall stand Henceforth 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.

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.

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, …

Neither love me for Thine own dear pity’s wiping my cheeks dry: A creature might forget to weep, who bore Thy comfort long, and lose thy love thereby.

But love me for love’s sake, that evermore Thou mayst love on through love’s eternity.

Accuse me not, beseech thee, that I wear Too calm and sad a face in front of thine; For we two look two ways, and cannot shine With the same sunlight on our brow and hair.

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.

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.

Who can fear Too many stars, though each in heaven shall roll, Too many flowers, though each shall crown the year? Say thou dost love me, love me, love me—toll The silver iterance!—only minding, Dear,

To love me also in silence with thy soul.

When our two souls stand up erect and strong, Face to face, silent, drawing nigh and nigher, Until the lengthening wings break into fire At either curved point—what bitter wrong Can the earth do to us, that we should not long Be here contented? Think.

Then, love me, Love! look on me—breathe on me! As brighter ladies do not count it strange, For love, to give up acres and degree, I yield the grave for thy sake, and exchange My near sweet view of Heaven for earth with thee!

Let the world’s sharpness like a clasping knife Shut in upon 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.

Very whitely still The lilies of our lives may reassure Their blossoms from their roots, accessible Alone to heavenly dews that drop not fewer; Growing straight, out of man’s reach, on the hill.

God only, who made us rich, can make us poor.

A heavy heart, 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 …

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.

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.

I find thee: I am safe, and strong, and glad. As one who stands in dewless asphodel Looks backward on the tedious time he had In the upper life—so I, with bosom-swell, Make witness, here, between the good and bad,

That Love, as strong as Death, retrieves as well.

My letters! all dead paper, mute and white! And yet they seem alive and quivering Against my tremulous hands which loose the string And let them drop down on my knee tonight.

As one who stands in dewless asphodel Looks backward on the tedious time he had In the upper life—so I, with bosom-swell, Make witness, here, between the good and bad, That Love, as strong as Death, retrieves as well.

My letters! all dead paper, mute and white!

And yet they seem alive and quivering Against my tremulous hands which loose the string And let them drop down on my knee tonight. This said, he wished to have me in his sight Once, as a friend;

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.

Oh, to shoot My soul’s full meaning into future years, That they should lend it utterance, and salute

Love that endures, from Life that disappears!

My future will not copy fair my past— I wrote that once;

I seek no copy now of life’s first half: Leave here the pages with long musing curled, And write me new my future’s epigraph, New angel mine, unhoped for in the world!

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.

I love thee to the depth and breadth and height My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight For the ends of Being and ideal Grace. I love thee to the level of everyday’s Most quiet need, by sun and candlelight.

I love thee 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.

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.

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.