Arts & Sciences

III

by Elizabeth Barrett Browning 1806–1861

From Sonnets from the Portuguese

Arts & Sciences

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 ply 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.

MLA

Browning, Elizabeth Barrett. “III.” Poetry Codex, poetrycodex.com/poem/browning_e/2/.

Chicago

Browning, Elizabeth Barrett. “III.” Poetry Codex. https://poetrycodex.com/poem/browning_e/2/.

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