XV

Accuse me not, beseech thee, that I wear
Too calm and sad a face in front of thine;
For we two look two ways, and cannot shine
With the same sunlight on our brow and hair.
On me thou lookest with no doubting care,
As on a bee shut in a crystalline;
Since sorrow hath shut me safe in love’s divine,
And to spread wing and fly in the outer air
Were most impossible failure, if I strove
To fail so. But I look on thee⁠—on thee⁠—
Beholding, besides love, the end of love,
Hearing oblivion beyond memory;
As one who sits and gazes from above,
Over the rivers to the bitter sea.

Where this text comes from

First published in Sonnets from the Portuguese (1850). First located printing is this volume; an earlier periodical printing has not been established. [1] [2]

Structure read from the source's markup; the words have not been compared against a page scan. Last checked 2026-08-20.

Taken from Standard Ebooks, standardebooks/elizabeth-barrett-browning_sonnets-from-the-portuguese, sonnets-from-the-portuguese.xhtml. Rights: public domain (SE dedication; underlying text pre-1931).

Earlier sources (2)

This poem as JSON or plain text. Line anchors #L1–#L14.

Cite this poem

Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806–1861). “XV.” First published in Sonnets from the Portuguese (1850). Text: Poem Index, https://poemindex.org/elizabeth-barrett-browning/xv/. Append #L14 to cite line 14, or #L4-L9 for lines 4–9.

More by Elizabeth Barrett Browning