Poetry Explorer


Classic and Contemporary Poetry


SONNETS FROM THE PORTUGUESE: 3 by ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING

Poet Analysis

First Line: UNLIKE ARE WE, UNLIKE, O PRINCELY HEART!
Last Line: AND DEATH MUST DIG THE LEVEL WHERE THESE AGREE.
Subject(s): DEATH; ANGELS; MAN-WOMAN RELATIONSHIPS; DEAD, THE; MALE-FEMALE RELATIONS;

UNLIKE are we, unlike, O princely Heart!
Unlike our uses and our destinies.
Our ministering two angels look surprise
On one another, as they strike athwart
Their wings in passing. Thou, bethink thee, art
A guest for queens to social pageantries,
With gages from a hundred brighter eyes
Than tears even can make mine, to play thy part
Of chief musician. What hast thou to do
With looking from the lattice-lights at me,
A poor, tired, wandering singer, singing through
The dark, and leaning up a cypress tree?
The chrism is on thine head, -- on mine, the dew, --
And Death must dig the level where these agree.



Home: PoetryExplorer.net