Sonnets from the Portuguese | Page 5

it pass.
X
Yet, love, mere love, is beautiful indeed
And worth of acceptation.
Fire is bright,
Let temple burn, or flax; an equal light
Leaps in the
flame from cedar-plank or weed:
And love is fire. And when I say at
need
I love thee . . . mark! . . . I love thee--in thy sight
I stand
transfigured, glorified aright,
With conscience of the new rays that
proceed
Out of my 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?