Explore "Sonnets from the Portuguese" by Elizabeth Barrett Browning on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Thou hast thy calling to some palace-floor, / Most gracious singer of high poems! where / The dancers will break footing, from the care / Of watching up thy pregnant lips for more.
And dost thou lift this house's latch too poor / For hand of thine? and canst thou think and bear / To let thy music drop here unaware / In folds of golden fulness at my door? / Look up and see the casement broken in, / The bats and owlets builders in the roof! / My cricket chirps against thy mandolin.