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Home  »  The Book of the Sonnet  »  Mrs. Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806–1861)

Hunt and Lee, comps. The Book of the Sonnet. 1867.

XV. “And wilt thou have me fashion into speech”

Mrs. Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806–1861)

(From Sonnets from the Portuguese)

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 drop it at thy feet. I cannot teach

My hand to hold thy spirit 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.