Sonnets from the Portuguese: XXVIII
Sonnets from the Portuguese: XXVIII
Original Text
A Selection from the Poetry of Elizabeth Barrett Browning. First Series. New Edition. London: Smith, Elder, & Co., 1886. 1: 181-202.
1My letters! all dead paper, mute and white!
2And yet they seem alive and quivering
3Against my tremulous hands which loose the string
4And let them drop down on my knee to-night.
5This said,—he wished to have me in his sight
6Once, as a friend: this fixed a day in spring
7To come and touch my hand . . . a simple thing,
8Yet I wept for it!—this, . . . the paper’s light . . .
9Said, Dear I love thee; and I sank and quailed
10As if God’s future thundered on my past.
11This said, I am thine—and so its ink has paled
12With lying at my heart that beat too fast.
13And this . . . O Love, thy words have ill availed
14If, what this said, I dared repeat at last!
Publication Start Year
1850
RPO poem Editors
Marc R. Plamondon
RPO Edition
2007
Form