Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806-1861)
Sonnets from the Portuguese: IX
1Can it be right to give what I can give?
2To let thee sit beneath the fall of tears
3As salt as mine, and hear the sighing years
4Re-sighing on my lips renunciative
5Through those infrequent smiles which fail to live
6For all thy adjurations? O my fears,
7That this can scarce be right! We are not peers
8So to be lovers; and I own, and grieve,
9That givers of such gifts as mine are, must
10Be counted with the ungenerous. Out, alas!
11I will not soil thy purple with my dust,
12Nor breathe my poison on thy Venice-glass,
13Nor give thee any love—which were unjust.
14Beloved, I only love thee! let it pass.
Notes
12] Venice-glass: elaborate and fine drinking glass. Legend has it that if such a glass were touched by poison, the glass would shatter.
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
