Sonnet XV from Sonnets From the Portuguese

Elizabeth Barrett Browning



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 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.