Sonnets from the Portuguese

What it costs to hand someone the ashes of your grief.

I lift my heavy heart up solemnly,As once Electra her sepulchral urn,And, looking in thine eyes, I overturnThe ashes at thy feet. Behold and seeWhat a great heap of grief lay hid in me,And how the red wild sparkles dimly burnThrough the ashen greyness. If thy foot in scornCould tread them out to darkness utterly,It might be well perhaps. But if insteadThou wait beside me for the wind to blowThe grey dust up—those laurels on thine head,O my Beloved, will not shield thee so,That none of all the fires shall scorch and shredThe hair beneath. Stand further off then! Go.

What a mother leaves in your hair when she dies.

I never gave a lock of hair awayTo a man, Dearest, except this to thee,Which now upon my fingers thoughtfullyI ring out to the full brown length, and say:“Take it.” My day of youth went yesterday;My hair no longer bounds to my foot’s glee,Nor plant I it from rose or myrtle-tree,As girls do, any more: it only mayNow shade on two pale cheeks, the mark of tears,Taught drooping from the head that hangs asideThrough sorrow’s trick. I thought the funeral shearsWould take this first, but Love is justified:Take it thou—finding pure, from all those years,The kiss my mother left here when she died.

When thoughts of someone grow so thick they hide the person.

I think of thee!—my thoughts do twine and budAbout thee, as wild vines about a treePut out broad leaves, and soon there’s nought to seeExcept the straggling green which hides the wood.Yet, O my palm-tree, be it understoodI will not have my thoughts instead of theeWho art dearer, better! Rather, instantlyRenew thy presence; as a strong tree should,Rustle thy boughs and set thy trunk all bare,And let these bands of greenery which insphere theeDrop heavily down—burst, shattered, everywhere!Because, in this deep joy to see and hear theeAnd breathe within thy shadow a new air,I do not think of thee—I am too near thee.