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.
More verses by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
- Sonnet Ii: But Only Three In All God's Universe
- Sonnets From The Portuguese V
- Sonnet Vii
- Sonnet V: I Lift My Heavy Heart Up
- Sonnet Xl: Oh, Yes! They Love