Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Sonnets from the Portuguese:
Elizabeth Barrett Browning wrote this poem right before her wedding with Robert Browning. The poem was about her courtship and the love she felt for him. The poem was showed to her husband after the wedding, and he talked her into publishing it. She would only publish it under a false name though, so that people would not suspect what the poem was about. One thing I assumed is that in this poem Elizabeth Barrett Browning is the speaker of the poem and that she is speaking to Robert. Usually you cannot assume the author is the speaker, however in this case the book tells us she wrote these poems about her courtship with Robert and gave them to him after their wedding night.
In the beginning of this poem Browning conveys a sense of loneliness and an expectation of death. She speaks about a song that the Greeks sang about a man and a woman getting together and falling in love. She thinks about this song, and then she looks back on her life so far and points out “in gradual vision through my tears/ The sweet, sad years, the melancholy years,/ Those of my own life, who by turns had flung/ A shadow across me.” 7-9. What I believe she meant by this statement is that through the tears she has cried, and the sadness she has dealt with throughout her life so far she feels as if there is a cloud over her head. It kind of reminds me of the cartoons you watch where the rain cloud follows over the characters head no matter where they go. Browning feels this way because she has not experienced love, and she feels this happiness they sing about is not for her. Even when asked “Guess now who holds thee?” 13 she responds “death” 13. This could possibly be partly because of her sickness also. The first stanza defiantly gives us a dark picture of Browning, however this begins to change rather rapidly.
At the end of the first stanza she conveys to us that she has found love. Beginning in the second stanza we begin understanding just how strong her love with Robert is. The example she uses is “And hold the torch out, while the winds are rough” 3. When I read this I immediately pictured a heavy wind storm and a torch and the light going out instantly. But she was comparing their love to this torch and saying that even this strong wind could not blow out their torch because their love for each other was so strong. This is such an interesting metaphor to me because to find something that strong seems almost impossible. She also says an interesting line in line 9 “Nay, let the silence of my womanhood/ Commend my woman love to thy belief” 9-10. This goes back to her strong political views I believe. She is saying that she is a woman and she is supposed to “be quiet” in society and just accept the man she shall marry and not speak out. However, Browning is saying that I am speaking out about our love and about my love for you.
In the third stanza she is speaking directly to Robert I believe. She says she wants to hear him say “I love you” over and over again. She even pointed out that saying I love you repeatedly is like a “cuckoo song” 3. This is very true even in today’s society. People use the phrase “I love you” way too often and when it is not necessarily true. Possibly what Browning meant by this though is that she wanted to hear him say it over and over again even if it seemed repetitive and unimportant because it was important to her. While even though she said repeating it was like the cuckoo bird, she also pointed out “never to the hill or plain,/ Valley and wood, without her cuckoo-strain/ Comes the fresh Spring in all her green completed” 4-6. What she meant by this is that even though the bird may be repetitive and even annoying, Spring time would not be complete without the bird. Just like the love between her and Robert would not be complete if he did not re-assure her of his love. There again I thought this was a brilliant metaphor, comparing the Spring time coming with the song of a cuckoo bird. The comparison to the song with saying I love you and how the song and Spring, and I love you and actual love go together made perfect sense to me.
In the next stanza she starts talking about how happy she is on Earth, which seems to be a pretty quick change from the first stanza when she felt like a shadow was cast over her all the time. In fact, she says “what bitter wrong/ can the earth do to us, that we should not long/ Be here contented?” 4-6. She is saying that there is nothing that could be so bad on this earth that would make her be un-content right now. She is so happy and so in love with Robert her world seems to be perfect. She says she would rather stay on Earth and love him even though she knows she will eventually die then to go to heaven right now. She does not want to ever have to live without him.
In the fifth stanza we learn about Robert arranging their first meeting. She said, “Once, as a friend: this fixed day in Spring” 5. So at this point in time she viewed Robert simply as a friend when she went to this arranged meeting to meet him. On their first meeting she said that he touched her hand and she knew right then she loved him. I believe she went and wrote about it because she said “this… the paper’s light/ Said, Dear, I love thee”8-9. I suppose after their first meeting she knew she was in love with him and since she is a poet, she went home to write about it and express how she felt through her writing. This would be the same case as someone today going and calling their best friend to tell them about it.
In the sixth stanza she describes how she felt when he first told her that he was in love with her. She did what most people do who are afraid and in love at the same time. She jumped to conclusions about him loving her. She said “Quick-loving hearts, I thought, may quickly loathe” 5. I believe she was saying that someone who can love me some quickly will be just as quick to leave me. Then she started to doubt herself “For such man’s love!—more like an out of tune/ Worn viol, a good singer would be wroth/ To spoil his song with, and which, snatched in haste” 7-9. She is now comparing his love to an old broken down instrument, which is not good for playing. She is almost convincing herself here that this cannot be good. Then she says later on “For perfect strains my float/ ‘Neath master hands, from instruments defaced-/ and great souls, at one stroke, may do and doat” 12-14. She realizes later that Robert is a good guy and that he really does love her and she says she placed a wrong on him, and she was wrong because even the worst instruments that are worn out can be great when played by a great musician.
In the next stanza she talks about the more intimate side of their relationship. She tells us exactly how she felt each time he kissed her. Her metaphor for the first kiss on her forehead was really impressive. She says, “The first, and sought the forehead, and half missed…..That was the chrism of love”8-10. She compares him kissing her on the forehead to the oil that is put on your forehead during a coronation. This is such a neat metaphor because she takes something truly special and compares it to the first time he kissed her. That shows what a strong connection she must have felt for him.
Then in her last stanza she simply explains all of the ways in which she loves Robert. This section is pretty self explanatory, she loves him purely, freely, etc. The neat thing she says to him at the end is that she hopes god will let her love him in the after life.
This poem was very well written and clearly showed Browning’s love for her husband. The obviously had a very special bond. She is probably my favorite author as of now.