| Arthur Quiller-Couch, comp. The Oxford Book of Victorian Verse. 1922. | | | Sonnets from the Portuguese
I. ‘Unlike are we, unlike, O princely Heart!’ | | By Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806–1861) |
| | | UNLIKE are we, unlike, O princely Heart! | |
| Unlike our uses and our destinies. | |
| Our minist’ring two angels look surprise | |
| On one another, as they strike athwart | |
| Their wings in passing. Thou, bethink thee, art | 5 |
| 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— | 10 |
| 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. | | | | |
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