Classic and Contemporary Poetry
A DENIAL, by ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING Poet Analysis Poet's Biography First Line: We have met late - it is too late to meet Last Line: Look in my face and see.' Subject(s): Love - Unrequited; Time | ||||||||
I WE have met late -- it is too late to meet, O friend, not more than friend! Death's forecome shroud is tangled round my feet, And if I step or stir, I touch the end. In this last jeopardy Can I approach thee, I, who cannot move? How shall I answer thy request for love? Look in my face and see. II I love thee not, I dare not love thee! go In silence; drop my hand. If thou seek roses, seek them where they blow In garden-alleys, not in desert-sand. Can life and death agree, That thou shouldst stoop thy song to my complaint? I cannot love thee. If the word is faint, Look in my face and see. III I might have loved thee in some former days. Oh, then, my spirits had leapt As now they sink, at hearing thy love-praise! Before these faded cheeks were overwept, Had this been asked of me, To love thee with my whole strong heart and head, -- I should have said still ... yes, but smiled and said, 'Look in my face and see!' IV But now ... God sees me, God, who took my heart And drowned it in life's surge. In all your wide warm earth I have no part -- A light song overcomes me like a dirge. Could Love's great harmony The saints keep step to when their bonds are loose, Not weigh me down? am I a wife to choose? Look in my face and see -- V While I behold, as plain as one who dreams, Some woman of full worth, Whose voice, as cadenced as a silver stream's, Shall prove the fountain-soul which sends it forth; One younger, more thought-free And fair and gay, than I, thou must forget, With brighter eyes than these ... which are not we ... Look in my face and see! VI So farewell thou, whom I have known too late To let thee come so near. Be counted happy while men call thee great, And one beloved woman feels thee dear! -- Not I! -- that cannot be. I am lost, I am changed, -- I must go farther, where The change shall take me worse, and no one dare Look in my face and see. VII Meantime I bless thee. By these thoughts of mine I bless thee from all such! I bless thy lamp to oil, thy cup to wine, Thy hearth to joy, thy hand to an equal touch Of loyal troth. For me, I love thee not, I love thee not! -- away! Here's no more courage in my soul to say 'Look in my face and see.' | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...ELEVEN EYES: FINAL SECTION by LYN HEJINIAN THE FATALIST: COME OCTOBER by LYN HEJINIAN THE FATALIST: HOME by LYN HEJINIAN THE FATALIST: TIME IS FILLED by LYN HEJINIAN SLOWLY: I FREQUENTLY SLOWLY WISH by LYN HEJINIAN ALL THE DIFFICULT HOURS AND MINUTES by JANE HIRSHFIELD A DAY IS VAST by JANE HIRSHFIELD FROM THIS HEIGHT by TONY HOAGLAND A CHILD'S THOUGHT OF GOD by ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING |
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