Sonnets from the Portuguese | Page 5

face toward thine. There's nothing low?In love, when love the lowest: meanest creatures?Who love God, God accepts while loving so.?And what I feel, across the inferior features?Of what I am, doth flash itself, and show?How that great work of Love enhances Nature's.
XI
And therefore if to love can be desert,?I am not all unworthy. Cheeks as pale?As these you see, and trembling knees that fail?To bear the burden of a heavy heart, -?This weary minstrel-life that once was girt?To climb Aornus, and can scarce avail?To pipe now 'gainst the valley nightingale?A melancholy music,--why advert?To these things? O Beloved, it is plain?I am not of thy worth nor for thy place!?And yet, because I love thee, I obtain?From that same love this vindicating grace?To live on still in love, and yet in vain, -?To bless thee, yet renounce thee to thy face.
XII
Indeed this very love which is my boast,?And which, when rising up from breast to brow,?Doth crown me with a ruby large enow?To draw men's eyes and prove the inner cost, -?This love even, all my worth, to the uttermost,?I should not love withal, unless that thou?Hadst set me an example, shown me how,?When first thine earnest eyes with mine were crossed,?And love called love. And thus, I cannot speak?Of love even, as a good thing of my own:?Thy soul hath snatched up mine all faint and weak,?And placed it by thee on a golden throne, -?And that I love (O soul, we must be meek!)?Is by thee only, whom I love alone.
XIII
And wilt thou have me fashion into speech?The love I bear thee, finding words enough,?And hold the torch out, while the winds are rough,?Between our faces, to cast light on each? -?I dropt it at thy feet. I cannot teach?My hand to hold my spirits so far off?From myself--me--that I should bring thee proof?In words, of love hid in me out of reach.?Nay, let the silence of my womanhood?Commend my woman-love to thy belief, -?Seeing that I stand unwon, however wooed,?And rend the garment of my life, in brief,?By a most dauntless, voiceless fortitude,?Lest one touch of this heart convey its grief.
XIV
If thou must love me, let it be for nought?Except for love's sake only. Do not say?"I love her for her smile--her look--her way?Of speaking gently,--for a trick of thought?That falls in well with mine, and certes brought?A sense of pleasant ease on such a day" -?For these things in themselves, Beloved, may?Be changed, or change for thee,--and love, so wrought,?May be unwrought so. Neither love me for?Thine own dear pity's wiping my cheeks dry, -?A creature might forget to weep, who bore?Thy comfort long, and lose thy love thereby!?But love me for love's sake, that evermore?Thou may'st love on, through love's eternity.
XV
Accuse me not, beseech thee, that I wear?Too calm and sad a face in front of thine;?For we two look two ways, and cannot shine?With the same sunlight on our brow and hair.?On me thou lookest with no doubting care,?As on a bee shut in a crystalline;?Since sorrow hath shut me safe in love's divine,?And to spread wing and fly in the outer air?Were most impossible failure, if I strove?To fail so. But I look on thee--on thee -?Beholding, besides love, the end of love,?Hearing oblivion beyond memory;?As one who sits and gazes from above,?Over the rivers to the bitter sea.
XVI
And yet, because thou overcomest so,?Because thou art more noble and like a king,?Thou canst prevail against my fears and fling?Thy purple round me, till my heart shall grow?Too close against thine heart henceforth to know?How it shook when alone. Why, conquering?May prove as lordly and complete a thing?In lifting upward, as in crushing low!?And as a vanquished soldier yields his sword?To one who lifts him from the bloody earth,?Even so, Beloved, I at last record,?Here ends my strife. If thou invite me forth,?I rise above abasement at the word.?Make thy love larger to enlarge my worth!
XVII
My poet, thou canst touch on all the notes?God set between His After and Before,?And strike up and strike off the general roar?Of the rushing worlds a melody that floats?In a serene air purely. Antidotes?Of medicated music, answering for?Mankind's forlornest uses, thou canst pour?From thence into their ears. God's will devotes?Thine to such ends, and mine to wait on thine.?How, Dearest, wilt thou have me for most use??A hope, to sing by gladly? or a fine?Sad memory, with thy songs to interfuse??A shade, in which to sing--of palm or pine??A grave, on which to rest from singing? Choose.
XVIII
I never gave a lock of hair away?To a man, Dearest, except this to thee,?Which now upon my fingers thoughtfully?I ring out to the full brown length and say?"Take it." My day of youth went yesterday;?My hair no longer bounds to my foot's glee,?Nor plant I it from rose- or myrtle-tree,?As girls do,