Sonnets from the Portuguese ii

By Elizabeth Barrett Browning

1806-1861

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.

DayPoems Poem No. 635
<a href="http://www.daypoems.net/poems/635.html">Sonnets from the Portuguese ii by Elizabeth Barrett Browning</a>

The DayPoems Poetry Collection, www.daypoems.net
Timothy Bovee, editor

Poets  Poems