Poet's Corner: four sonnets by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

[stonepicnicking_okapi]

Elizabeth Barrett Browning's Sonnets from the Portuguese is lunabee34's Poetry Jam selection for April. So, if you like EBB, check it out. Here are my favourites.

Edited to add: I like this reading of the sonnets at Librivox. The voice is British, female, and sounds as if she's off to die of consumption or haunt someone's mirror.

XIX

The soul’s Rialto hath its merchandize;
I barter curl for curl upon that mart,
And from my poet’s forehead to my heart
Receive this lock which outweighs argosies,—
As purply black, as erst to Pindar’s eyes
The dim purpureal tresses gloomed athwart
The nine white Muse-brows. For this counterpart, . . .
The bay crown’s shade, Belovëd, I surmise,
Still lingers on thy curl, it is so black!
Thus, with a fillet of smooth-kissing breath,
I tie the shadows safe from gliding back,
And lay the gift where nothing hindereth;
Here on my heart, as on thy brow, to lack
No natural heat till mine grows cold in death.

The first line does it for me. It's such a great line. My favourite single line of the whole set of sonnets.



XXIV

Let the world’s sharpness like a clasping knife
Shut in upon itself and do no harm
In this close hand of Love, now soft and warm,
And let us hear no sound of human strife
After the click of the shutting. Life to life—
I lean upon thee, Dear, without alarm,
And feel as safe as guarded by a charm
Against the stab of worldlings, who if rife
Are weak to injure. Very whitely still
The lilies of our lives may reassure
Their blossoms from their roots, accessible
Alone to heavenly dews that drop not fewer;
Growing straight, out of man’s reach, on the hill.
God only, who made us rich, can make us poor.

The knife imagery is splendid.

XXV

A heavy heart, Belovëd, have I borne
From year to year until I saw thy face,
And sorrow after sorrow took the place
Of all those natural joys as lightly worn
As the stringed pearls, each lifted in its turn
By a beating heart at dance-time. Hopes apace
Were changed to long despairs, till God’s own grace
Could scarcely lift above the world forlorn
My heavy heart. Then thou didst bid me bring
And let it drop adown thy calmly great
Deep being! Fast it sinketh, as a thing
Which its own nature does precipitate,
While thine doth close above it, mediating
Betwixt the stars and the unaccomplished fate.

I love the last six lines. I think it could definitely be another Were & Nightwalker fic. I used the last two lines of the first sonnet in the collection in a writing-on-the-body fic for that AU.

XXXVII

Pardon, oh, pardon, that my soul should make
Of all that strong divineness which I know
For thine and thee, an image only so
Formed of the sand, and fit to shift and break.
It is that distant years which did not take
Thy sovranty, recoiling with a blow,
Have forced my swimming brain to undergo
Their doubt and dread, and blindly to forsake
Thy purity of likeness and distort
Thy worthiest love to a worthless counterfeit.
As if a shipwrecked Pagan, safe in port,
His guardian sea-god to commemorate,
Should set a sculptured porpoise, gills a-snort
And vibrant tail, within the temple-gate.

The last four lines call to mind an AU.

Comments

[lunabee34]

Those are all lovely.

Thanks for reading with me each month. I'm really enjoying all the different kinds of poems we're reading.

[stonepicnicking_okapi]

Yes, the selections are diverse. That's good.

[misbegotten]

or haunt someone's mirror

*chortle*

[stonepicnicking_okapi]

Hers really is a perfect voice for the sonnets!