Explore "Sonnets from the Portuguese" by Elizabeth Barrett Browning on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
When we met first and loved, I did not build / Upon the event with marble. Could it mean / To last, a love set pendulous between / Sorrow and sorrow? Nay, I rather thrilled, / Distrusting every light that seemed to gild / The onward path, and feared to overlean / A finger even. And, though I have grown serene / And strong since then, I think that God has willed / A still renewable fear. O love, O troth . . .
Lest these enclaspëd hands should never hold, / This mutual kiss drop down between us both / As an unowned thing, once the lips being cold.