Explore "Sonnets from the Portuguese" by Elizabeth Barrett Browning on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
And therefore if to love can be desert, / I am not all unworthy. Cheeks as pale / As these you see, and trembling knees that fail / To bear the burden of a heavy heart,- / This weary minstrel-life that once was girt / To climb Aornus, and can scarce avail / To pipe now 'gainst the valley nightingale / A melancholy music,-why advert / To these things? O Belovëd, it is plain / I am not of thy worth nor for thy place! / And yet, because I love thee, I obtain / From that same love this vindicating grace / To live on still in love, and yet in vain,- / To bless thee, yet renounce thee to thy face.