Sonnets from the Portuguese (version 2) — 4 - Chapters 31-44

XXXI

Thou comest!

all is said without a word.

I sit beneath thy looks, as children do In the noon-sun, with souls that tremble through Their happy eyelids from an unaverred Yet prodigal inward joy.

Behold, I erred In that last doubt!

and yet I cannot rue The sin most, but the occasion—that we two Should for a moment stand unministered By a mutual presence.

Ah, keep near and close, Thou dove-like help!

and when my fears would rise, With thy broad heart serenely interpose: Brood down with thy divine sufficiencies These thoughts which tremble when bereft of those, Like callow birds left desert to the skies.

XXXII

The first time that the sun rose on thine oath To love me, I looked forward to the moon To slacken all those bonds which seemed too soon And quickly tied to make a lasting troth.

Quick-loving hearts, I thought, may quickly loathe;

And, looking on myself, I seemed not one For such man’s love!

—more like an out-of-tune Worn viol, a good singer would be wroth To spoil his song with, and which, snatched in haste, Is laid down at the first ill-sounding note.

I did not wrong myself so, but I placed A wrong on thee.

For perfect strains may float ’Neath master-hands, from instruments defaced,— And great souls, at one stroke, may do and doat.

XXXIII

Yes, call me by my pet-name!

let me hear The name I used to run at, when a child, From innocent play, and leave the cowslips plied, To glance up in some face that proved me dear With the look of its eyes.

I miss the clear Fond voices which, being drawn and reconciled Into the music of Heaven’s undefiled, Call me no longer.

Silence on the bier, While I call God—call God!

—so let thy mouth Be heir to those who are now exanimate.

Gather the north flowers to complete the south, And catch the early love up in the late.

Yes, call me by that name,—and I, in truth, With the same heart, will answer and not wait.

XXXIV

With the same heart, I said, I’ll answer thee As those, when thou shalt call me by my name— Lo, the vain promise!

is the same, the same, Perplexed and ruffled by life’s strategy?

When called before, I told how hastily I dropped my flowers or brake off from a game.

To run and answer with the smile that came At play last moment, and went on with me Through my obedience.

When I answer now, I drop a grave thought, break from solitude;

Yet still my heart goes to thee—ponder how— Not as to a single good, but all my good!

Lay thy hand on it, best one, and allow That no child’s foot could run fast as this blood.

XXXV

If I leave all for thee, wilt thou exchange And be all to me?

Shall I never miss Home-talk and blessing and the common kiss That comes to each in turn, nor count it strange, When I look up, to drop on a new range Of walls and floors, another home than this?

Nay, wilt thou fill that place by me which is Filled by dead eyes too tender to know change That’s hardest.

If to conquer love, has tried, To conquer grief, tries more, as all things prove, For grief indeed is love and grief beside.

Alas, I have grieved so I am hard to love.

Yet love me—wilt thou?

Open thy heart wide, And fold within, the wet wings of thy dove.

XXXVI

When we met first and loved, I did not build Upon the event with marble.

Could it mean To last, a love set pendulous between Sorrow and sorrow?

Nay, I rather thrilled, Distrusting every light that seemed to gild The onward path, and feared to overlean A finger even.

And, though I have grown serene And strong since then, I think that God has willed A still renewable fear .

.

.

O love, O troth .

.

.

Lest these enclaspëd hands should never hold, This mutual kiss drop down between us both As an unowned thing, once the lips being cold.

And Love, be false!

if he, to keep one oath, Must lose one joy, by his life’s star foretold.

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.

XXXVIII

First time he kissed me, he but only kissed The fingers of this hand wherewith I write;

And ever since, it grew more clean and white.

Slow to world-greetings, quick with its “O, list,” When the angels speak.

A ring of amethyst I could not wear here, plainer to my sight, Than that first kiss.

The second passed in height The first, and sought the forehead, and half missed, Half falling on the hair.

O beyond meed!

That was the chrism of love, which love’s own crown, With sanctifying sweetness, did precede The third upon my lips was folded down In perfect, purple state; since when, indeed, I have been proud and said, “My love, my own.

” XXXIX

Because thou hast the power and own’st the grace To look through and behind this mask of me, (Against which, years have beat thus blanchingly, With 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 place In the new Heavens,—because nor sin nor woe, Nor God’s infliction, nor death’s neighbourhood, Nor all which others viewing, turn to go, Nor all which makes me tired of all, self-viewed,— Nothing repels thee, .

.

.

Dearest, teach me so To pour out gratitude, as thou dost, good!

XL

Oh, yes!

they love through all this world of ours!

I will not gainsay love, called love forsooth: I have heard love talked in my early youth, And since, not so long back but that the flowers Then gathered, smell still.

Mussulmans and Giaours Throw kerchiefs at a smile, and have no ruth For any weeping.

Polypheme’s white tooth Slips on the nut if, after frequent showers, The shell is over-smooth,—and not so much Will turn the thing called love, aside to hate Or else to oblivion.

But thou art not such A lover, my Belovëd!

thou canst wait Through sorrow and sickness, to bring souls to touch, And think it soon when others cry “Too late.

” XLI

I thank all who have loved me in their hearts, With thanks and love from mine.

Deep thanks to all Who paused a little near the prison-wall To hear my music in its louder parts Ere they went onward, each one to the mart’s Or temple’s occupation, beyond call.

But thou, who, in my voice’s sink and fall When the sob took it, thy divinest Art’s Own instrument didst drop down at thy foot To harken what I said between my tears, .

.

.

Instruct me how to thank thee!

Oh, to shoot My soul’s full meaning into future years, That they should lend it utterance, and salute Love that endures, from life that disappears!

XLII

My future will not copy fair my past— I wrote that once; and thinking at my side My ministering life-angel justified The word by his appealing look upcast To the white throne of God, I turned at last, And there, instead, saw thee, not unallied To angels in thy soul!

Then I, long tried By natural ills, received the comfort fast, While budding, at thy sight, my pilgrim’s staff Gave out green leaves with morning dews impearled.

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!

XLIII

How do I love thee?

Let me count the ways.

I love thee to the depth and breadth and height My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.

I love thee to the level of everyday’s Most quiet need, by sun and candlelight.

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 use In my old griefs, and with my childhood’s faith.

I love thee with a love I seemed to lose With 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.

XLIV

Belovëd, thou hast brought me many flowers Plucked in the garden, all the summer through, And winter, and it seemed as if they grew In this close room, nor missed the sun and showers.

So, in the like name of that love of ours, Take back these thoughts which here unfolded too, And which on warm and cold days I withdrew From my heart’s ground.

Indeed, those beds and bowers Be overgrown with bitter weeds and rue, And wait thy weeding; yet here’s eglantine, Here’s ivy!

—take them, as I used to do Thy flowers, and keep them where they shall not pine.

Instruct thine eyes to keep their colours true, And tell thy soul, their roots are left in mine.

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