Sos from the Puese i
I THOUGHT once how Theocritus had sung
Of the sweet years, the dear and wishd-for years,
Who eae in a gracious hand appears
To bear a gift for mortals old or young:
And, as I mused it in his 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 flung
A shadow ae. 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.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Sos from the Puese ii
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. Thou, bethink thee, art
A guest for queens to social pageantries,
With gages from a hundred brighter eyes
Than tears even make mio play thy part
Of chief musi. 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 mihe dew--
Ah must dig the level where these agree.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Sos from the Puese iii
GO from me. Yet I feel that I shall stand
Henceforward in thy shadow. Nevermore
Alone upohreshold of my door
Of individual life I shall and
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.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Sos from the Puese iv
IF thou must love me, let it be for naught
Except for loves sake only. Do not say,
I love her for her smile--her look--her way
Of speakily,--for a trick of thought
That falls in well with mine, aes brought
A sense of pleasant ease on such a day--
For these things in themselves, Beloved, may
Be ged, or ge for thee--and love, sht,
May be unwrought so. her love me for
Thine own dear pitys wiping my cheeks dry:
A creature might fet to weep, who bore
Thy fort long, and lose thy love thereby!
But love me for loves sake, that evermore
Thou mayst love on, through loves eternity.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Sos from the Puese v
WHEN our two souls stand up ered strong,
Face to face, silent, drawing nigh and nigher,
Until the lengthening wings break into fire
At either curving point,--what bitter wrong
the earth do us, that we should not long
Be here tehink! In mounting higher,
The angels would press on us, and aspire
To drop some golden orb of perfect song
Into our deep, dear silence. Let us stay
Rather oh, Beloved--where the unfit
trarious moods of men recoil away
And isolate pure spirits, a
A place to stand and