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Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806-1861)

Sonnets from the Portuguese: III


              1Unlike are we, unlike, O princely Heart!
              2Unlike our uses and our destinies.
              3Our ministering two angels look surprise
              4On one another, as they strike athwart
              5Their wings in passing.  Thou, bethink thee, art
              6A guest for queens to social pageantries,
              7With gages from a hundred brighter eyes
              8Than tears even can make mine, to play thy part
              9Of chief musician.  What hast thou to do
            10With looking from the lattice-lights at me,
            11A poor, tired, wandering singer, singing through
            12The dark, and leaning up a cypress tree?
            13The chrism is on thine head,—on mine, the dew,—
            14And Death must dig the level where these agree.

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Sonnets from the Portuguese: II 		next poem in the collection
Sonnets from the Portuguese: IV

Notes

7] gages: tokens given to ensure some action is performed (such as a song or a battle); securities (a legal term)

12] cypress tree: the cypress tree is usually associated with funerals and death

13] chrism: a scented oil used for anointing in the Catholic church and sometimes in the Church of England

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

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