Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806–1861)

From ‘Sonnets from the Portuguese’

GO from me. Yet I feel that I shall stand

Henceforward in thy shadow. Nevermore

Alone upon the threshold of my door

Of individual life, I shall command

The uses of my soul, nor lift my hand

Serenely in the sunshine as before,

Without the sense of that which I forbore,—

Thy touch upon the palm. The widest land

Doom takes to part us, leaves thy heart in mine

With pulses that beat double. What I do

And what I dream include thee, as the wine

Must taste of its own grapes. And when I sue

God for myself, He hears that name of thine,

And sees within my eyes the tears of two.

*****

Belovèd, my Belovèd, when I think

That thou wast in the world a year ago,

What time I sate alone here in the snow

And saw no footprint, heard the silence sink

No moment at thy voice,—but, link by link,

Went counting all my chains, as if that so

They never could fall off at any blow

Struck by thy possible hand—why, thus I drink

Of life’s great cup of wonder! Wonderful,

Never to feel thee thrill the day or night

With personal act or speech,—nor ever cull

Some prescience of thee with the blossoms white

Thou sawest growing! Atheists are as dull,

Who cannot guess God’s presence out of sight.