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    Sonnets from the Portuguese and Other Poems
    Sonnets from the Portuguese and Other Poems
    Sonnets from the Portuguese and Other Poems
    Ebook153 pages1 hour

    Sonnets from the Portuguese and Other Poems

    By Elizabeth Barrett Browning

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    About this ebook

    Referring to her olive-skinned complexion Robert Browning called his wife, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, "his little Portuguese." It is from this nickname that the title "Sonnets from the Portuguese" is derived. Sonnets from the Portuguese, a series of love poems from Elizabeth to her husband, is combined here with a collection of 60 of her other poems.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherDigireads.com Publishing
    Release dateJan 1, 2010
    ISBN9781596740853
    Sonnets from the Portuguese and Other Poems
    Author

    Elizabeth Barrett Browning

    Elizabeth Barrett Browning was one of the foremost poets of the nineteenth century, perhaps best known for her verse epic Aurora Leigh.

    Read more from Elizabeth Barrett Browning

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    Reviews for Sonnets from the Portuguese and Other Poems

    4.5/5

    4 ratings6 reviews

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    • 4/5
      I must say that I was slow to warm up to the poems and don't think I would have liked them as well without having read the Introduction first. Lovely, very personal. You can really see the path of the love affair between EBB and Robert Browning.
    • 4/5
      I think that I might have liked these more when I was younger...
    • 5/5
      First book gift I gave to Mike. After 28 years, still sits on his night stand.n yes, he reads it. Occasionally.
    • 5/5
      Receiving this as a gift on my 18th birthday from my best friend was one of my "Coming of Age" moments. It opened a wonderful world of being able to express all of those emotions that were inundating me, mentally and physically. I can never thank her enough.
    • 5/5
      Despite a strong recommendation from a dear friend whose taste in books I respect greatly, I resisted reading Victorian English poetry, insisting I would never understand it. My resistance weaned, and I am glad for it. This utterly charming set of poetry is heartfelt and uplifting, and I find myself rooting for their love and for Elizabeth Barrett Browning herself. My only wish was for Elizabeth to have lived longer than her 55 years. But to have loved brilliantly for even only 15 years till a person’s end is still more than anyone can hope for. This set of highly personal poetry, written by Elizabeth throughout her courtship with Robert Browning, which began in 1845, eloped in 1846, was gifted to him in 1849. The uniqueness in their relationship drove this set of sonnets to be particularly celebratory. She was an accomplished poet with published works (early career woman), older than him by 6 years (unusual then), she was age 39 when they met (finding love late in life), she was an invalid (shame, feeling inadequate). He courted her for her and the beauty of her poetry, appreciating her mind and her as a person, which is always the best basis to start any relationship. She had great hesitations, partly due to feeling that she doesn’t measure up and some influence from her family, deeming him to be a gold digger. In the end, their love flourished, and we, the readers, are blessed to have this set of sonnets that remind us what Love is really about – all-encompassing, unconditional, whole-heartedly, with acceptance. ♥Quotes (abbreviated):Sonnet I: Her hope for love, but hope lost, given up.The sweet, sad years, the melancholy years,Those of my own life,………“Guess now who holds thee!” --- “Death” I said.But thereThe silver anaswer rang, --- “Not Death, but Love” Sonnet VII: To be in love, surprised, and her world changing on account of it. (It’s such a beautiful new experience for her.)…………, where I, who thought to sink,Was caught up into love,………And this… this lute and song… love yesterday,(The singing angels know) are only dearBecause thy name moves right in what they say.Sonnet VIII: Feeling inadequate in the relationship. (To me, this is such a classic amongst even solid relationships, doubting oneself, constantly wondering if you measure up, despite how much love is flowing both ways.)What can I give thee back, O liberalAnd princely giver, who hast brought the gold and purple of thine heart…………… am I cold,Ungrateful, that for these most manifoldHigh gifts, I render nothing back at all?No so; not cold, ---- but very poor instead.Sonnet X: Burning with Love. She is enthralled, enraptured, consumed with love. Yet, love, mere love, is beautiful indeedAnd worthy of acceptation…………And love is fire. And when I say at needI love thee… mark!... I love thee – in thy sightI stand transfigured…………Sonnet XIV: She asked to be loved, simply for love’s sake and not for anything that may change or out of pity. (I find this to be such a logical and basic thought that doesn’t seem to be considered much.) If thou must love me, let it be for noughtExcept for love’s sake only. Do not say“I love her for her smile ---her look---her wayOf speaking gently,………”For these things in themselves, Beloved, may Be changed, or change for thee,………………….Neither love me forThine own dear pity’s wiping my cheeks dry,---………But love me for love’s sake, that evermoreThou may’st love on, through love’s eternity.Sonnet XX: She has doubts and wants reassurance. (I am guilty of requiring reassurance. Perhaps guilty is too strong a word. I simply believe that every relationship should have continued reassurance. No man or woman should be made to assume they are loved while drudging through the stress of daily life, and some times, shamed for wanting assurance. It should be freely given, via a gentle touch, a kind smile, a twinkle in your eyes.) Say over again, and yet once over again,That thou dost love me…………Beloved, I, amid the darkness greetedBy a doubtful spirit – voice, in that doubt’s painCry, “Speak once more---thou lovest!”………Say thou dost love me, love me, love me---tollThe silver iterance!---only minding, Dear,To love me also in silence with thy soul.Sonnet XXXVIII: She writes of the first kiss, the second kiss, the third kiss. (The beauty of increasing passion between two lovers…)First time he kissed me, he but only kissed The fingers of this hand wherewith I write;………………….The second passed in heightThe frist, and sought the forehead, and half missed,Half falling on the hair…………The third upon my lips was folded downIn perfect, purple state; since when, indeed,I have been proud and said, “My love, my own.”Sonnet XXXIX, in its entirety: To be accepted for who she is, she expresses gratitude. (This is easily the most powerful sonnet, despite the popularity of ‘how do I love thee, let me count the ways’. There is not a single person who does not desire to be accepted for who he/she is. To have found that lover/mate/partner in life is a treasure that ought to be celebrated.)Because thou hast the power and own’st the graceTo look through and behind this mask of me,(Against which, years have beat thus blanchinglyWith their rains,) and behold my soul’s true face,The dim and weary witness of life’s race, -Because thou hast the faith and love to see,Through that same soul’s distracting lethargy,The patient angel waiting for a placeIn the new Heavens, - because nor sin nor woe,Nor God’s infliction, nor death’s neighborhood,Nor all which other’s viewing, turn to go,Nor all which makes me tired of all, self-viewed, -Nothing repels thee … Dearest, teach me soTo pour gratitude, as thou dost, good!Sonnet XLII: She starts a new future, gladly. (Such a powerful conviction and will to know this is what she wants, especially in light that her father has disowned her and her family has abandoned her due to her marriage.) My future will not copy fair my past---I wrote that once; and thinking at my sideMy ministering life………I seek no copy now of life’s first half:Leave here the pages with long musing curled,And write me new my future’s epigraph,New angel mine, unhoped for in the world!Sonnet XLIII, in its entirety: The most famous – to have love that is complete, free, pure, passionate, and also enduring even after death.How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.I love thee to the depth and breadth and heightMy soul can reach, when feeling out of sightFor the ends of Being and ideal Grace.I love thee to the level of everyday’sMost quiet need, by sun and candle-light.I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.I love thee with the passion put to useIn my old griefs, and with my childhood’s faith.I love thee with a love I seemed to loseWith my lost saints, --- I love thee with the breath,Smiles, tears, of all my life! ---and, if God choose,I shall but love thee better after death.
    • 5/5
      I had not expected this collection of love poems to be so melancholic. Although a degree of self-doubt and uncertainty goes along with any lovers thoughts, the tone here is of such low self-esteem, such self-recrimination that it strikes me that the poet was suffering from depression. But through the darkness, there are sparks of hope, that maybe love will come, will be true and will rescue.In the end, the poet is redeemed and transformed by love, but it seems to have been a close-run thing.There's such beautiful imagery in every poem that it's almost impossible to select one out above the others, but I particularly like Sonnet V:I lift my heavy heart up solemnly,As one Electra her sepulchral urn,And, looking in thine eyes, I overturnThe ashes at thy feet. Behold and seeWhat a great heap of grief lay hid in me,And how the red wild sparkles dimly burnThrough the ashen greyness. If thy foot in scornCould tread them out to darkness utterly,It might be well perhaps. But if insteadThou wait beside me for the wind to blowThe grey dust up,...those laurels on thine head,O my Belovëd, will not shield thee so,That none of all the fires shall scorch and shredThe hair beneath. Stand further off then! go!

    Book preview

    Sonnets from the Portuguese and Other Poems - Elizabeth Barrett Browning

    SONNETS FROM THE PORTUGUESE

    AND OTHER POEMS

    BY ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING

    A Digireads.com Book

    Digireads.com Publishing

    Print ISBN 13: 978-1-4209-2575-3

    Ebook ISBN 13: 978-1-59674-085-3

    This edition copyright © 2012

    Please visit www.digireads.com

    CONTENTS

    SONNETS FROM THE PORTUGUESE

    OTHER POEMS

    A Child Asleep

    A Child's Thought Of God

    A Curse For A Nation

    A Dead Rose

    A False Step

    A Man's Requirements

    A Musical Instrument

    A Sea-Side Walk

    A Thought For A Lonely Death-Bed

    A Valediction

    A Woman's Shortcomings

    A Year's Spinning

    Adequacy

    An Apprehension

    Bianca Among The Nightingales

    Change Upon Change

    Cheerfulness Taught By Reason

    Comfort

    Consolation

    De Profundis

    Discontent

    Exaggeration

    Futurity

    Grief

    How Do I Love Thee?

    Insufficiency

    Irreparableness

    Lord Walter's Wife

    Minstrelsy

    On A Portrait Of Wordsworth By B. R. Haydon

    Pain In Pleasure

    Past And Future

    Patience Taught By Nature

    Perplexed Music

    Rosalind's Scroll

    Substitution

    Tears

    The Autumn

    The Best Thing in the World

    The Cry Of The Children

    The Deserted Garden

    The Holy Night

    The House Of Clouds

    The Lady's Yes

    The Landing of the Pilgrim Fathers

    The Look

    The Meaning Of The Look

    The Poet And The Bird

    The Prisoner

    The Runaway Slave at Pilgrim's Point

    The Seraph and Poet

    The Soul's Expression

    The Two Sayings

    The Weakest Thing

    To

    To Flush, My Dog

    To George Sand: A Desire

    To George Sand: A Recognition

    Work

    Work And Contemplation

    SONNETS FROM THE PORTUGUESE

    I

    I thought once how Theocritus had sung

    Of the sweet years, the dear and wished-for years,

    Who each one in a gracious hand appears

    To bear a gift for mortals, old or young:

    And, as I mused it in his antique tongue,

    I saw, in gradual vision through my tears,

    The sweet, sad years, the melancholy years,

    Those of my own life, who by turns had flung

    A shadow across me. Straightway I was 'ware,

    So weeping, how a mystic Shape did move

    Behind me, and drew me backward by the hair;

    And a voice said in mastery, while I strove,—

    Guess now who holds thee!—Death, I said, But, there,

    The silver answer rang, Not death, but Love.

    II

    But only three in all God's universe

    Have heard this word thou hast said,—himself, beside

    Thee speaking, and me listening! and replied

    One of us... that was God,... and laid the curse

    So darkly on my eyelids, so as to amerce

    My sight from seeing thee,—that if I had died,

    The death-weights, placed there, would have signified

    Less absolute exclusion. Nay is worse

    From God than from all others, O my friend!

    Men could not part us with their worldly jars,

    Nor the seas change us, nor the tempests bend;

    Our hands would touch for all the mountain-bars:

    And, heaven being rolled between us at the end,

    We should but vow the faster for the stars.

    III

    Unlike are we, unlike, O princely Heart!

    Unlike our uses and our destinies.

    Our ministering two angels look surprise

    On one another, as they strike athwart

    Their wings in passing. Thou, bethink thee, art

    A guest for queens to social pageantries,

    With gages from a hundred brighter eyes

    Than tears even can make mine, to play thy part

    Of chief musician. What hast thou to do

    With looking from the lattice-lights at me,

    A poor, tired, wandering singer, singing through

    The dark, and leaning up a cypress tree?

    The chrism is on thine head,—on mine, the dew,—

    And Death must dig the level where these agree.

    IV

    Thou hast thy calling to some palace-floor,

    Most gracious singer of high poems! where

    The dancers will break footing, from the care

    Of watching up thy pregnant lips for more.

    And dost thou lift this house's latch too poor

    For hand of thine? and canst thou think and bear

    To let thy music drop here unaware

    In folds of golden fulness at my door?

    Look up and see the casement broken in,

    The bats and owlets builders in the roof!

    My cricket chirps against thy mandolin.

    Hush, call no echo up in further proof

    Of desolation! there's a voice within

    That weeps... as thou must sing... alone, aloof.

    V

    I lift my heavy heart up solemnly,

    As once Electra her sepulchral urn,

    And, looking in thine eyes, I over-turn

    The ashes at thy feet. Behold and see

    What a great heap of grief lay hid in me,

    And how the red wild sparkles dimly burn

    Through the ashen greyness. If thy foot in scorn

    Could tread them out to darkness utterly,

    It might be well perhaps. But if instead

    Thou wait beside me for the wind to blow

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

    O my Beloved, will not shield thee so,

    That none of all the fires shall scorch and shred

    The hair beneath. Stand further off then! go!

    VI

    Go from me. Yet I feel that I shall stand

    Henceforward in thy shadow. Nevermore

    Alone upon the threshold of my door

    Of individual life, I shall command

    The uses of my soul, nor lift my hand

    Serenely in the sunshine as before,

    Without the sense of that which I forbore—

    Thy touch upon the palm. The widest land

    Doom takes to part us, leaves thy heart in mine

    With pulses that beat double. What I do

    And what I dream include thee, as the wine

    Must taste of its own grapes. And when I sue

    God for myself, He hears that name of thine,

    And sees within my eyes the tears of two.

    VII

    The face of all the world is changed, I think,

    Since first I heard the footsteps of thy soul

    Move still, oh, still, beside me, as they stole

    Betwixt me and the dreadful outer brink

    Of obvious death, where I, who thought to sink,

    Was caught up into love, and taught the whole

    Of life in a new rhythm. The cup of dole

    God gave for baptism, I am fain to drink,

    And praise its sweetness, Sweet, with thee anear.

    The names of country, heaven, are changed away

    For where thou art or shalt be, there or here;

    And this... this lute and song... loved yesterday,

    (The singing angels know) are only dear

    Because thy name moves right in what they say.

    VIII

    What can I give thee back, O liberal

    And princely giver, who hast brought the gold

    And purple of thine heart, unstained, untold,

    And laid them on the

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