Sonnets from the Portuguese, is a collection of forty-four love sonnets written by Elizabeth Barrett Browning. The poems largely chronicle the period leading up to her 1846 marriage to Robert Browning. The collection was acclaimed and popular even in the poet's lifetime and it remains so today. Elizabeth was initially hesitant to publish the poems, feeling that they were too personal. However, Robert insisted that they were the best sequence of English-language sonnets since Shakespeare's time and urged her to publish them. To offer the couple some privacy, she decided that she might publish them under a title disguising the poems as translations of foreign sonnets. Therefore, the collection was first to be known as Sonnets from the Bosnian, until Robert suggested that she change their imaginary original language to Portuguese, probably after his nickname for her: "my little Portuguese."
By : Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806 - 1861)
01 - I thought once how Theocritus had sung
02 - But only three in all God's universe
03 - Unlike are we, unlike, o princely heart
04 - Thou hast thy calling to some palace floor
05 - I lift my heavy heart up solemnly
06 - Go from me. Yet I feel that I shall stand
07 - The face of all the world is changed, I think
08 - What can I give thee back, O liberal
09 - Can it be right to give what I can give?
10 - Yet, love, mere love, is beautiful enough
11 - And therefore if to love can be desert
12 - Indeed this very love which is my boast
13 - And wilt thou have me fashion into speech
14 - If thou must love me, let it be for nought
15 - Accuse me not, beseech thee, that I wear
16 - And yet, because thou overcomest so
17 - My poet, thou canst touch on all the notes
18 - I never gave a lock of hair away
19 - The soul's Rialto hath its merchandise
20 - Beloved, my beloved, when I think
21 - Say over again, and yet once over again
22 - When our two souls stand up erect and strong
23 - Is it indeed so? If I lay here dead
24 - Let the world's sharpness, like a clasping knife
25 - A heavy heart, Beloved, have I borne
26 - I lived with visions for my company
27 - My own Beloved, who has lifted me
28 - My letters! all dead paper, mute and white!
29 - I think of thee!--my thoughts do twine and bud
30 - I see thine image through my tears tonight
31 - Thou comest! All is said without a word
32 - The first time that the sun rose on thine oath
33 - Yes, call me by my pet-name! Let me hear
34 - With the same heart, I said, I'll answer thee
35 - If I leave all for thee, wilt thou exchange
36 - When we first met and loved, I did not build
37 - Pardon, oh, pardon that my soul should make
38 - First time he kissed me, he but only kissed
39 - Because thou hast the power and own'st the grace
40 - Oh yes! they love all through this world of ours!
41 - I thank all who have loved me in their hearts
42 - My future will not copy fair my past
43 - How do I love thee? Let me count the ways
44 - Beloved, thou hast brought me many flowers
The most famous poems from this collection are numbers 33 and 43:
Number 33
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 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.
Number 43
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,
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