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Category: Sonnets from the Portuguese

May 17, 2013

XXXVlll. First time he kissed me, he but only kissed – Elizabeth Barrett Browning‏

from “Sonnets from the Portuguese“

XXXVlll. First time he kissed me, he but only kissed

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 “Oh, 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.”

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

________________________

had the sonnet allowed for more lines,
instead of its strict fourteen, this poem
could not ‘ve not become indecent,
“purple”, she says, indeed

nor, for that matter, more clear, Elizabeth
has succumbed to his one, two, three
kisses, enough to now call him “[m]y love,
my own”

meed is a reward, and archaic

chrism is holy anointing oil, nearly also
now, but sacramentally, lost

so intimate a declaration as this would’ve
been unprecedented in 1845-46, when
these poems were written, though we’re
used to much more flagrant stuff nowadays

that this had been written by a woman
must’ve been nearly scandalous, though
such was allowing the Romantic Age, and
this “most flagrant” expression would
become eventually its very symbol, the
exploration of the human heart, the highly
intimate revelations of an individual soul

Elizabeth Barrett Browning holds the top
spot here, nobody does it better

in intrinsically less overtly graphic music,
Chopin

Richard Strauss does a similar thing in his
opera “Salome” several years later, several,
indeed, decades later, 1905, but in reverse,
Salome wants to first of all touch John the
Baptist’s skin, he won’t allow it, undaunted
she asks to touch his black hair, nor will
he allow that, she insists further on a kiss,
which doesn’t either come, the scene is
lurid and shocking

“nothing in the world is as red as your
mouth”, she begs, “let me kiss it, your
mouth”

my dear, I cautioned

later she will dance the “Dance of the Seven
Veils“, lately performed even, after the veils
are, one by one, off, naked

for which she gets John the Baptist’s head,
and finally gets her kiss

honest

the version I saw was unforgettable,
though it had taken a free ticket to
get me there

Richard

psst: you’ll note, incidentally, that this poem
is not an avowal, but a confidence,
spoken to us, not to him, a not
insignificant factor

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May 6, 2013

XXXVll. Pardon, oh, pardon, that my soul should make – Elizabeth Barrett Browning‏

from “Sonnets from the Portuguese“

XXXVll. Pardon, oh, pardon, that my soul should make

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
The 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

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

_________________________

though Elizabeth Barrett Browning is ever
abstruse, dare I say, even Baroque – the
epoch of distorted perspectives and
dimensions which preceded the Classical
Era – in her not only grammatical but also
metaphorical constructions, to the point of,
as in the last, her XXXVlth sonnet, being
incomprehensible, too athwart for my taste,
or even my tolerance, here she returns to
form to shine again in her own Romantic
Age, a more literate time, as opposed to
our more visual one, where straight talk
would not ‘ve passed muster as worthy
of any art, that would happen only later
as a reaction to too elaborate artifice,
which you might already even decry,
for instance, in these sonnets

but to make distinctive the form – the sonnet
goes back to at least Shakespeare, who is
even an obvious inspiration for Elizabeth –
she would’ve had to embroider her own
version of it, which she could only have
done with fresh artifice upon the ancient
structure, like decorative elaborations on
the traditional tablecloth

if they work it’s because the artifice meets
the substance equally, enough to give
meaning to the poem, verve to the
reinvigorated tabletop

but often, dear Elizabeth, for me, and I would
think for many others in our Twitter age, for
the most part your poems do only just, albeit
enough to make you nevertheless iconic

for Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Chopin
represent for us now more than any of the
other Romantics their distinctive Age, and
with great, let there be no doubt, and easily
demonstrated, authority

“Pardon, oh, pardon“ is not a breeze but it
expands admirably, and distinctively, on her
other masterpieces, or should I say here,
mistresspieces

forgive my soul, she asks, for mistaking your
“strong divineness” for something as fleeting
as “sand”, something “fit to shift and break”

his “sovranty” – sovereignty, which finds its
etymological roots in the French word
“souveraineté”, should you be wondering –
had not been a part of her past, her “distant
years” and therefore led to her confusion,
her “swimming brain”, imagining he might
be “a worthless counterfeit” – haven’t we all
been there – instead of the “worthiest love”

she compares herself to a “shipwrecked
Pagan”, who, saved, “safe in port”, gives
thanks, pays homage, to “a sea-god”, “a
sculptured porpoise, gills a-snort”, rather
than, of course, her One and True
Christian God, an interesting instance
of religious iconographical inflexibility,
as though her Christian God had more
authenticity than the sea deity

Elizabeth Barrett Browning, it should be
noted, remained ever to her Divinity devout
despite the intermittent fluctuations of her
less religiously committed husband

who nevertheless remained ever to her
true, and ever, both romantically and
Romantically, by her, stalwart

Richard

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April 30, 2013

XXXVl. When we met first and loved, I did not build – Elizabeth Barrett Browning‏

from “Sonnets from the Portuguese“

XXXVl. When we met first and loved, I did not build

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 enclaspèd 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

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

_________________________

some poems cross the line of scrutability,
the line of even credibility sometimes,
being too cute for their own artful ever
nevertheless intentions, too abstruse,
clever, for their own too weighted words,
having let artifice overwhelm whatever
substance

the beginning here is straightforward,
Elizabeth hasn’t cast her dreams in
“marble”, she hasn’t engraved her
illusions in stone, she dutifully allows
for disappointment in the promise of
fulfilment that lies between what has
lain before for her and what lies ahead
be this promise not fulfilled, or
eventually, in any case, forthwith
thwarted, as inexorably it must, for
she is, they are, we all are, inescapably
mortal, we come to the end, ineluctably,
of all our projected dreams

but the danger of breaking, however
inadvertently, so magical a spell,
prevents her from moving even a
finger, as though a breath, a bristle,
a brush, could threaten its tenuous,
as she would have it, enchantment

and haven’t we all been there, I
remember the death of a possible love
in the momentary merely, and utterly
arbitrary, obstruction of our charged
line of sight, a sure sign of discordance,
a clear and irrevocable omen

but should their own conjunction not
hold, “This mutual kiss drop down
between us both”, she enjoins, allow
it to take hold as an independent, an
“unowned”, thing, a tribute ever to the
ineradicability of the moment, she urges,
even beyond their “lips being cold”, which
is to say, each beyond their, indomitably
separated, extraterrestrial existences

but why “drop down” instead of “raise”,
“[t]his mutual kiss …. between us”, one
incidentally wonders, shouldn’t a kiss
move up

“Love”, she then continues, “be false”,
out of, it seems, nowhere, do not hold
your promise of forever, she says, should
her suitor’s “oath” in any way betray his
happiness

hn, I asked, where did that come from

what are you talking about here, Elizabeth,
I pondered, which “oath” is to be kept, and
what “joy” is being threatened, you’ll have
to be more specific, dear

and how, furthermore, does this statement
follow from your otherwise reasonably
consecutive text

your love, I’m afraid, is a literary muddle in
this sorry construction, you’re generally,
though always metaphorically intricate,
more penetrable than this, you’ve let your
literary impulse trump your logic on this
one, Elizabeth, we’re not getting it

a poem must be, by definition, coherent, I
think, otherwise it’s nothing but hogwash,
doing damage to the very idea of poetry,
an affront, in the instance, indeed a
blasphemy

for poetry, to my mind, is sacred

then again maybe I’m being too ardent,
too harsh, too inflexible

and, for that matter, what, indeed, is
poetry

you define it

you be, for you are, the judge

Richard

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April 5, 2013

XXXV. If I leave all for thee, wilt thou exchange – Elizabeth Barrett Browning‏

from “Sonnets from the Portuguese“

XXXV. If I leave all for thee, wilt thou exchange

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

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

_________________________

though I’d assumed throughout that Elizabeth
was already married to Robert Browning while
she was writing these poems, the first line of
this sonnet got me wondering, “If I leave all
for thee”, what “all” could she be leaving if
she were already ensconced in his
metaphorical arms, even bedchamber

it turns out the poems, written from 1845
to 1846, were a prelude to their conjugal
knot, in 1846

well gee, so bold, even unbuttoned, I’ve
often thought, and yet evidently so
persuasive, or even conversely, maybe,
for him, irresistible, ultimately, who’d o’
thunk it

“If I leave all for thee”, “wilt thou”, she asks
“be all to me”, he must’ve asked her here,
just then, to be his bride

will I miss the place I’m leaving, will you
leave me more barren than in the “tender”
world I’m used to, than in the one I at least
know now, indeed an ever most adequate
haven

do not trip on the word “tried” in the first line
of the first triplet, which is to say, line nine,
which here means “has been a challenge”,
and not “has attempted”, Elizabeth is, of
course, a poet, poets do things like that,
supposing it to be good for your vocabulary

to conquer grief, she says, is even more trying
than conquering love, for grief is both together

tell me about it

her sadness, she feels, might have disqualified
her from ever being loved, would he chance it,
“wilt thou”, she questions him

about “the wet wings of [her] dove”, I’ll let you
figure it out

Richard

psst: he said yes

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April 3, 2013

XXXlV. With the same heart, I said, I’ll answer thee – Elizabeth Barrett Browning‏

from “Sonnets from the Portuguese”

XXXlV. With the same heart, I said, I’ll answer thee

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.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

_______________________

despite the fact that this poem is evidently
a continuation of the last one, her XXXlllrd,
“Yes, call me by my pet-name! let me hear“,
it is interesting to note that this XXXlVth
can stand entirely on its own, a separate
and independently cohesive entity, having
in this present iteration revisited all the
points that make the previously rendered
account wholly here a recapitulation, in all
even its intricate detail, superimposed upon
the other, or, more accurately here, after the
other, like skilled and artful embroidery, or
like Russian, maybe, nesting dolls

again it’s wise to watch the commas, and
read the lines as you would prose, if you’ll
pardon my, perhaps impertinent,
suggestion

but even then you’ll come up short, in the
second line at “those”, whose referents
are only inferred, though indeed still only
dimly, by the end of the poem

“those” are of course those she ran to, her
elders, and by extension their plural, note,
“eyes”, a wonderful, and shimmering, dare
I say, stitch, a reverberant metonymy, where
the “eyes” are not only those of one “some
face”, but apparently various also others, a
veritable prism ultimately in which she had
been severally reflected

and we’re just at line two, the second verse,
Elizabeth is manifestly a poet

in the third verse, “the same, the same”
juxtaposes twin statements, the point is
that these identities are now timeworn,
“[p]erplexed and ruffled by life’s strategy”,
by life’s disaffections and dislocations,
and become entirely opposite

but this remains

she says that her step is even more nimble,
now, fleeter, “no child’s step could run as
fast as this blood”, “this blood” being her
ardent, of course, devotion, she asks that
he be her purpose, “[n]ot as to a single
good, but all my good”

but isn’t that like saying God, in a world,
the Romantic Age, become then, if you’ll
remember, much more secular, this
position no longer a blasphemy, a heresy,
however unconsciously publically, even
scandalously, subversive

may he “[l]ay [his] hand on it”, she invokes,
his metaphysical hand on her metaphorical
heart, and “allow”, confirm, indeed consecrate,
this fervent declaration, which she has signed
with, assigned her last word to, note, her very
“blood”

Richard

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March 26, 2013

XXXlll. Yes, call me by my pet-name! let me hear – Elizabeth Barrett Browning‏

from “Sonnets from the Portuguese“

XXXlll. Yes, call me by my pet-name! let me hear

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 cow-slips piled,
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.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

________________________

Elizabeth Barrett Browning introduces
immediacy here in the very first beat by
making her metre trochaic – dum, da –
instead of iambic – da, dum – we’re in
the midst of already the conversation,
where Browning, Robert, had called
Elizabeth by a nickname, probably,
I would think, his “Portuguese”, the
“Portuguese” of these very poems,
and she peremptorily corners us, him

then, despite her insecurities, she
commands, as I’d earlier, maybe
somewhat sardonically, implied,
but we all have, don’t we, our
idiosyncratic peculiarities

“call me by my pet-name”, she insists,
like those who loved me used to do
when I was young, and that I ran to
when they called so that I could
beside them “glance” at the reflection
in their eyes of my very indeterminate
for me validity

but whose “voices” now, sadly, have
become “the music of” a perfect
“Heaven”, which is to say, where those
who have been there retired, “drawn
and reconciled”, are “undefiled”

only “Silence on the bier”, no reply, no
sound at all, from even the divinity she
beckons

“So let thy mouth / Be heir”, she charges,
as she is wont to do when she isn’t fretting,
be their counterpart, your “north” their
“south” flowers, their “early” your “late[r]“
love

“and I, in truth, / With the same heart”, as
when I left so hurriedly my “cow-slips”
“will answer and not wait” to fly at your
call

and all in only fifteen lines, to my,
hopefully helpful, several, with each
of hers sporting rich and resonant
even rhyme, which probably went
nevertheless mostly at first glance
unnoticed, to my fewer maybe, and
more insidiously covert ones

wherein lies, of course, the artistry,
the buttons don’t intrude on the
fabric, the garment’s pristine
symmetry, the poem’s potent
flowering

always

Richard

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March 24, 2013

XXXll. The first time that the sun rose on thine oath – Elizabeth Barrett Browning‏

from “Sonnets from the Portuguese“

XXXll. The first time that the sun rose on thine oath

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 dote.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

_____________________

“great souls” may transform those they touch,
to their great honour, and may stay to watch,
and nurture, in proud appreciation of that
transcendental transformation, look at our
children

but see here Elizabeth Barrett Browning
herself in this very poem, and also those
we’ve touched, been touched by, and
loved

if I’ve been connecting XlXth-Century
Elizabeth Barrett Browning with modern
torch songs, sublime often evocations
of consummate and unfettered love, it
is not without the influence of, indeed,
Elizabeth Barrett Browning, who opened
the floodgates to our cultural emotional
honesty, name any other otherwise

brave, brave Elizabeth Barrett Browning,
to whom we owe our unadulterated
present

here is Roberta Flack doing her own
sororal “first time”, an obvious heir
to Elizabeth Barrett Browning‘s
tacit permission and poem

here is another, and updated version
of the featured classic, that, however
improbably, in every moment, shines,
blazons, becoming just as, goodness,
unforgettable, just watch

Richard

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March 21, 2013

XXXl. Thou comest! all is said without a word – Elizabeth Barrett Browning‏

from “Sonnets from the Portuguese“

XXXl. Thou comest! all is said without a word

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 dovelike 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.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

______________________

it is a natural instinct nearly to read such
a poem in iambic pentameter, until you get
to the end of the verse, pause, and then do
the same thing with the next line, applying
a rhythm to each phrase, much like toneless
singing, after all, one surmises, it’s a poem,
words without the tune, it has a beat

but the beat in Elizabeth Barrett Browning‘s
poems, though staunch, is steeped in the
less evidently accented constructions of
prose, looser and less regimented, for
realism

like Beethoven, Elizabeth Barrett Browning
is breaking out of the Classical mode and
introducing the overflowing elements of
the Romantic personality, personal
expression dominating form the better
to reflect a new cultural reality

it’s interesting to note that Beethoven as
well found the key to representing that
new revolutionary spirit through the
manipulation of beat, both achieving
thereby the very pinnacle of consummate
artistry, icons of their, however great their
own personally chronologically distant,
age

but read the poem as though it were an
everyday sentence, the poetry will be clear,
beautiful, even wondrous, the rhythms not
immediately apparent though always
present and profoundly sure

both music and poetry would attempt
to sound like real life, to speak more
intimately and therefore truthfully,
while others will attempt to make
poetry out of mere prose, watch me,
we live in different times

about the poem, compare “you are
the wind beneath my wings“, for a
not dissimilar sentiment, watch
Patti Labelle make powerhouse
poetry out of mere prose

Richard

psst: more about wings

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March 20, 2013

XXX. I see thine image through my tears to-night – Elizabeth Barrett Browning‏

from “Sonnets from the Portuguese“

XXX. I see thine image through my tears to-night

I see thine image through my tears to-night,
And yet to-day I saw thee smiling. How
Refer the cause? – Belovèd, is it thou
Or I, who makes me sad? The acolyte
Amid the chanted joy and thankful rite
May so fall flat, with pale insensate brow
On the altar-stair. I hear thy voice and vow,
Perplexed, uncertain, since thou art out of sight,
As he, in his swooning ears, the choir’s amen.
Belovèd, dost thou love? or did I see all
The glory as I dreamed, and fainted when
Too vehement light dilated my ideal,
For my soul’s eyes? Will that light come again,
As now these tears come – falling hot and real?

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

______________________

it’s been a season since we left Elizabeth
Barrett Browning, flushed by her ardent
metaphorical, surely, exertions, in the
throes of “breath[ing] within thy shadow
a new air“, but now it seems she has
returned to her crushing insecurity, her
winter must’ve been especially barren

you’ll note the distortions in the metre,
akin to musical atonalities

as a poet, Elizabeth, who was evidently
well versed, as it were, in the Classics,
would’ve tinkered away at the form much
the same way a composer would’ve
at the conventions of music, radically
but convincingly if they were good, the
trick was in the balance achieved between
eccentricity and entertainment, artistic
wizardry and Truth, would it work, jarring
incongruities had to rouse if not delight,
as often incongruities can, do, and
should

Elizabeth is talking like Schoenberg
here, a couple of generations at least
later, notorious for dismantling harmony
in music with his rejection of the tonic
scale, allowing the neighbours to say
about his atonal music, my children
could do it, with patience and time of
course, for his works could often be
epic

her distorted cadences mirror also here,
however, her harried state, and are
mimetically instructive, in other words,
you can feel her distress in the erratic
pulse, or beat

she compares herself to an acolyte, an
attendant at mass, made often to look
like an angel – a boy, incidentally, always,
though that, by now, might’ve changed, I
haven’t kept up with ecclesiastical politics
– who has fainted, “fall[en] flat”, the musical
allusion, you’ll note here, unmistakable

in her consequent netherworld she
wonders if “the love you take is equal to
the love you make“, is her golden ideal
merely all in her head, or, in himself,
alive before her and apparent, its
actual incarnation

haven’t we all been there

and we’ve all, o, Elizabeth, moved on

though, I’ll grant, nobody has still said
what she had to say better

Richard

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November 23, 2012

XXlX. I think of thee! – my thoughts do twine and bud – Elizabeth Barrett Browning‏

from “Sonnets from the Portuguese“

XXlX. I think of thee! – my thoughts do twine and bud

I think of thee! – my thoughts do twine and bud
About thee, as wild vines, about a tree,
Put out broad leaves, and soon there’s nought to see
Except the straggling green which hides the wood.
Yet, O my palm-tree, be it understood
I will not have my thoughts instead of thee
Who art dearer, better! rather, instantly
Renew thy presence. As a strong tree should,
Rustle thy boughs and set thy trunk all bare,
And let these bands of greenery which insphere thee
Drop heavily down, – burst, shattered, everywhere!
Because, in this deep joy to see and hear thee
And breathe within thy shadow a new air,
I do not think of thee – I am too near thee

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

_____________________

“set thy trunk all bare” indeed, Elizabeth is
letting more than just her hair down here, she
is “twin[ing] and bud[ding] / About thee”, she
is, ahem, “hid[ing] the wood” of her “strong
tree”, her “palm-tree”, her abandon is letting
her “wild vines” engulf him, “I do not think of
thee – I am too near thee”, she exults, she is
“breath[ing] within thy shadow a new air”

this is of course communion of the very
highest order, transubstantiation,
metamorphosis, and she is here its
highest priestess

all, note, in ever rhyming, ever thumping,
iambic pentameter, enough to make you
blush

Richard

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