580. Sonnets from the Portuguese III

Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806—1861)

  UNLIKE are we, unlike, O princely Heart!

  Unlike our uses and our destinies.

  Our ministering two angels look surprise

  On one another, as they strike athwart

  Their wings in passing. Thou, bethink thee, art

  A guest for queens to social pageantries,

  With gages from a hundred brighter eyes

  Than tears even can make mine, to play thy part

  Of chief musician. What hast thou to do

  With looking from the lattice-lights at me,

  A poor, tired, wandering singer, singing through

  The dark, and leaning up a cypress tree?

  The chrism is on thine head,—on mine, the dew,—

  And Death must dig the level where these agree.