Explore "Sonnets from the Portuguese" by Elizabeth Barrett Browning on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
I see thine image through my tears to-night, / And yet to-day I saw thee smiling. How / Refer the cause?-Belovëd, is it thou / Or I, who makes me sad? The acolyte / Amid the chanted joy and thankful rite / May so fall flat, with pale insensate brow, / On the altar-stair. I hear thy voice and vow, / Perplexed, uncertain, since thou art out of sight, / As he, in his swooning ears, the choir's amen.
Belovëd, dost thou love? or did I see all / The glory as I dreamed, and fainted when / Too vehement light dilated my ideal, / For my soul's eyes? Will that light come again, / As now these tears come-falling hot and real?