Explore "Sonnets from the Portuguese" by Elizabeth Barrett Browning on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
I lift my heavy heart up solemnly, / As once Electra her sepulchral urn, / And, looking in thine eyes, I over-turn / The ashes at thy feet. Behold and see / What a great heap of grief lay hid in me, / And how the red wild sparkles dimly burn / Through the ashen greyness. If thy foot in scorn / Could tread them out to darkness utterly, / It might be well perhaps. But if instead / Thou wait beside me for the wind to blow / The grey dust up,. those laurels on thine head, / O my Belovëd, will not shield thee so, / That none of all the fires shall scorch and shred / The hair beneath. Stand further off then! go!