Explore "Sonnets from the Portuguese" by Elizabeth Barrett Browning on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
I never gave a lock of hair away / To a man, Dearest, except this to thee, / Which now upon my fingers thoughtfully / I ring out to the full brown length and say / "Take it." My day of youth went yesterday; / My hair no longer bounds to my foot's glee, / Nor plant I it from rose- or myrtle-tree, / As girls do, any more: it only may / Now shade on two pale cheeks the mark of tears, / Taught drooping from the head that hangs aside / Through sorrow's trick. I thought the funeral-shears / Would take this first, but Love is justified,- / Take it thou,-finding pure, from all those years, / The kiss my mother left here when she died.