592. Sonnets from the Portuguese XV

Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806—1861)

  ACCUSE me not, beseech thee, that I wear

  Too calm and sad a face in front of thine;

  For we two look two ways, and cannot shine

  With the same sunlight on our brow and hair.

  On me thou lookest with no doubting care,

  As on a bee shut in a crystalline;

  Since sorrow hath shut me safe in love’s divine,

  And to spread wing and fly in the outer air

  Were most impossible failure, if I strove

  To fail so. But I look on thee—on thee—

  Beholding, besides love, the end of love,

  Hearing oblivion beyond memory;

  As one who sits and gazes from above,

  Over the rivers to the bitter sea.