Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806-1861)
Sonnets from the Portuguese: I
1I thought once how Theocritus had sung
2Of the sweet years, the dear and wished-for years,
3Who each one in a gracious hand appears
4To bear a gift for mortals, old or young:
5And, as I mused it in his antique tongue,
6I saw, in gradual vision through my tears,
7The sweet, sad years, the melancholy years,
8Those of my own life, who by turns had flung
9A shadow across me. Straightway I was ’ware,
10So weeping, how a mystic Shape did move
11Behind me, and drew me backward by the hair;
12And a voice said in mastery, while I strove,—
13“Guess now who holds thee!”—“Death,” I said. But, there,
14The silver answer rang,—“Not Death, but Love.”
Notes
1] Theocritus: an ancient Greek bucolic poet, living in the 3rd century, B.C.
Online text copyright © 2009, Ian Lancashire (the Department of English) and the University of Toronto.
Published by the Web Development Group, Information Technology Services, University of Toronto Libraries.
Original text: A Selection from the Poetry of Elizabeth Barrett Browning. First Series. New Edition. London: Smith, Elder, & Co., 1886. 1: 181-202.
First publication date:
1850
RPO poem editor: Marc R. Plamondon
RP edition: 2007
Recent editing: 2:2007/11/24
Composition date:
1846
Form: sonnet
Other poems by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
