RPO -- Elizabeth Barrett Browning : Sonnets from the Portuguese: V

Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806-1861)

Sonnets from the Portuguese: V

1I lift my heavy heart up solemnly,

2As once Electra her sepulchral urn,

3And, looking in thine eyes, I overturn

4The ashes at thy feet. Behold and see

5What a great heap of grief lay hid in me,

6And how the red wild sparkles dimly burn

7Through the ashen greyness. If thy foot in scorn

8Could tread them out to darkness utterly,

9It might be well perhaps. But if instead

10Thou wait beside me for the wind to blow

11The grey dust up, . . . those laurels on thine head,

12O my Belovèd, will not shield thee so,

13That none of all the fires shall scorch and shred

14The hair beneath. Stand further off then! go!

previous poem in the collection
Sonnets from the Portuguese: IV next poem in the collection
Sonnets from the Portuguese: VI

Notes

2] Electra: in Greek mythology, the daughter of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra. She is best known (from Aeschylus’s play, Agamemnon) for her homage to her dead father’s memory, after he had been killed by her mother and her mother’s new lover, and for waiting for her brother, Orestes, to return to avenge her father’s death.

11] laurels: leaves from the laurel tree traditionally symbolize praise, victory, and fame

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