Elizabeth Barrett Browning: Sonnets from the&nb ...

Sonnets from the Portuguese (23)

By Elizabeth Barrett Browning

XXIII.

Is it indeed so? If I lay here dead,

Would’st thou miss any life in losing mine,

And would the sun for thee more coldly shine,

Because of grave-damps falling round my head?

I marvelled, my Beloved, when I read

Thy thought so in the letter. I am thine ---

But … _so_ much to thee ? Can I pour thy wine

While my hands tremble? Then my soul, instead

Of dreams of death, resumes life's lower range!

Then love me, Love! look on me … breathe on me !

As brighter ladies do not count it strange,

For love, to give up acres and degree,

I yield the grave for thy sake, and exchange

My near sweet view of Heaven, for earth with thee!