Sweeter Words Saturday: Elizabeth Barrett Browning Edition

I am not ashamed to say that my first exposure to the 
works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning is from Robert
Zemechis's "Who Framed Roger Rabbit?" Eddie Valient 
had just pressed Roger Rabbit for his alibi, Roger Rabbit 
begins to describe how he had spent the evening writing 
his wife a love letter. Roger proceeds to quote Browning's 
work before jumping up and down literally counting out 
aloud his love for his wife, Jessica Rabbit.


It seems that out of Browning's work, that stanza is 
commonly used and cited in the media. I quite enjoyed 
her sonnets from the Portuguese and will be sharing some 
stanzas.

Browning's own life seems to have influenced the songs 
of the Portuguese. I hope you enjoy these sonnets.

Songs of the Portuguese's by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Sonnet 6

Go from me. Yet I feel that I shall

      stand

Henceforward in thy shadow. Never-

      more

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 for-

      bore -

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.

Sonnet nine

Can it be right to give what I can give?

To let thee sit beneath the fall of tears

As salt as mine, and hear the sighing

     years

Re-sighing on my lips renunciative

Through those infrequent smiles             

    which fail to live

For 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,

    must

Be 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.

Sonnet 12

Indeed this very love which is my boast,

And which, when rising up from 

       breast to brow,

Doth crown me with a ruby large enow

To draw men's eyes and prove the

      inner cost, -

This love even, all my worth, to the 

      utterance most,

I should not love withal, unless that 
      thou 
Hadst set me an example, shown me   

      how,

When first thine earnest eyes with mine 

      were crossed,

And love called love. And thus, I can-

      not speak

Of 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.