So XVI
A, because thou overest so,
Because thou art more noble and like a king,
Thou st prevail against my fears and fling
Thy purple rouill my heart shall grow
Too close against thi heh to know
How it shook when alone. Why, quering
May prove as lordly and plete 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.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning
So XVI: A, Because Thou
A, because thou overest so,
Because thou art more noble and like a king,
Thou st prevail against my fears and fling
Thy purple rouill my heart shall grow
Too close against thi heh to know
How it shook when alone. Why, quering
May prove as lordly and plete 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, 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.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning
So XVII
My poet, thou st tou 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 musiswering for
Mankinds forlor uses, thou st pour
From theo their ears. Gods will devotes
Thio suds, and mio 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.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning
So XVII: My Poet, Thou st Touch
My poet, thou st tou 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 musiswering for
Mankinds forlor uses, thou st pour
From theo their ears. Gods will devotes
Thio suds, and mio 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.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning
So XVIII
I never gave a lock of hair away
To a man, Dearest, except this to thee,
Whiow upon my fihoughtfully,
I ring out to the full browh and say
Take it. My day of youth weerday;
My hair no longer bounds to my foots 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 sorrows 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.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning
So