Elizabeth Barrett browning

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Jaytlc98
New Member

since 2000-09-02

Posts 2
Erie,Pa

0 posted 2000-09-02 08:03 PM

I am looking for "A Denial" By Elizabeth Barrett Browning. A friend recommended it to me and I don't know alot about poetry or where or how to find it and help would be greatly appreciated.

Nan

Administrator

Member Seraphic

since 1999-05-20

Posts 21191
Cape Cod Massachusetts USA

1 posted 2000-09-02 08:32 PM

This poem isn't in the Passions "Classics" selection, nor do I find it on several E.B.B. related sites. You may have to find a "complete works" to access it.

Romy
Senior Member

since 2000-05-28

Posts 1170
Plantation, Florida

2 posted 2000-09-02 08:53 PM

Here you go! Enjoy!

Elizabeth Barrett Browning
A Denial

We have met late--it is too late to meet,
O friend, not more than friend!
Death's forecome shroud is tangled round my feet,
And if I step or stir, I touch the end.
In this last jeopardy
Can I approach thee, I, who cannot move?
How shall I answer thy request for love?
Look in my face and see.

I love thee not, I dare not love thee! go
In silence; drop my hand.
If thou seek roses, seek them where they blow
In garden-alleys, not in desert-sand.
Can life and death agree,
That thou shouldst stoop thy song to my complaint?
I cannot love thee. If the word is faint,
Look in my face and see.

I might have loved thee in some former days,
Oh, then, my spirits had leapt
As now they sink, at hearing thy love-praise.
Before these faded cheeks were overwept,
Had this been asked of me,
To love thee with my whole strong heart and head,--
I should have said still . . . yes, but smiled and said,
'Look in my face and see!'

But now . . . God sees me, God, who took my heart
And drowned it in life's surge.
In all your wide warm earth I have no part--
A light song overcomes me like a dirge.
Could Love's great harmony
The saints keep step to when their bonds are loose,
Not weigh me down? am I a wife to choose?
Look in my face and see.

While I behold, as plain as one who dreams,
Some woman of full worth,
Whose voice, as cadenced as a silver stream's,
Shall prove the fountain-soul which sends it forth;
One younger, more thought-free
And fair and gay, than I, thou must forget,
With brighter eyes than these . . which are not wet . .
Look in my face and see!

So farewell thou, whom I have known too late
To let thee come so near.
Be counted happy while men call thee great,
And one belovèd woman feels thee dear!--
Not I!--that cannot be.
I am lost, I am changed,--I must go farther, where
The change shall take me worse, and no one dare
Look in my face and see.

Meantime I bless thee. By these thoughts of mine
I bless thee from all such!
I bless thy lamp to oil, thy cup to wine,
Thy hearth to joy, thy hand to an equal touch
Of loyal troth. For me,
I love thee not, I love thee not!--away!
Here's no more courage in my soul to say
'Look in my face and see.'

Nan

Administrator

Member Seraphic

since 1999-05-20

Posts 21191
Cape Cod Massachusetts USA

3 posted 2000-09-03 10:51 PM

Good work, Deb...

Jaytlc98
New Member

since 2000-09-02

Posts 2
Erie,Pa

4 posted 2000-09-03 10:56 PM

Debbie I emailed you and thanked you but just wnated to post it here too. I really appreciate it. I am very new at this and you made it easy ;-)

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