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Three Sonnets from the Portuguese , opus 15

by Hubert du Plessis (b. 1922)

?. Go from me  [sung text not yet checked]

Language: English 
Go from me. Yet I feel that I shall stand
Henceforward in thy shadow. Nevermore
Alone upon the threshold of my door
Of individual life, I shall command
The uses of my soul, nor lift my hand
Serenely in the sunshine as before,
Without the sense of that which I forbore...
Thy touch upon the palm. The widest land
Doom takes to part us, leaves thy heart in mine
With pulses that beat double. What I do
And what I dream include thee, as the wine
Must taste of its own grapes. And when I sue
God for myself, He bears that name of thine,
And sees within my eyes, the tears of two.

Text Authorship:

  • by Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806 - 1861), no title, appears in Poems, in Sonnets from the Portuguese, no. 6

See other settings of this text.

Available translations, adaptations or excerpts, and transliterations (if applicable):

  • GER German (Deutsch) (Bertram Kottmann) , "Weiche, geh", copyright © 2007, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
  • GER German (Deutsch) (Rainer Maria Rilke) , no title, appears in Sonette aus dem Portugiesischen, no. 6, first published 1908

?. Unlike are we  [sung text not yet checked]

Language: English 
Unlike are we, unlike, O princely Heart!
Unlike our uses and our destinies.
Our ministering two angels look surprise
On one another, as they strike athwart
Their wings in passing. Thou, bethink thee, art
A guest for queens to social pageantries,
With gages from a hundred brighter eyes
Than tears [even]1 can make mine, to ply thy part
Of chief musician. What hast thou to do
With looking from the lattice-lights at me,
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.

Text Authorship:

  • by Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806 - 1861), no title, appears in Poems, in Sonnets from the Portuguese, no. 3, first published 1847

See other settings of this text.

Available translations, adaptations or excerpts, and transliterations (if applicable):

  • GER German (Deutsch) (Rainer Maria Rilke) , appears in Sonette aus dem Portugiesischen, no. 3, first published 1908

View original text (without footnotes)

Confirmed with A Book of Women’s Verse, ed. by J. C. Squire. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1921; Bartleby.com, 2011. www.bartleby.com/291/104.html

1 Morawetz: "ever"

?. Let the world's sharpness  [sung text not yet checked]

Language: English 
Let the world's sharpness like a clasping knife
Shut in upon itself and do no harm
In this close hand of Love, now soft and warm,
And let us hear no sound of human strife
After the click of the shutting.  Life to life -- 
I lean upon thee, Dear, without alarm,
And feel as safe as guarded by a charm
Against the stab of worldlings, who if rife
Are weak to injure.  Very whitely still
The lilies of our lives may reassure
Their blossoms from their roots, accessible
Alone to heavenly dews that drop not fewer;
Growing straight, out of man's reach, on the hill.
God only, who made us rich, can make us poor.

Text Authorship:

  • by Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806 - 1861), appears in Poems, in Sonnets from the Portuguese, no. 24, first published 1847

See other settings of this text.

Available translations, adaptations or excerpts, and transliterations (if applicable):

  • GER German (Deutsch) (Rainer Maria Rilke) , no title, appears in Sonette aus dem Portugiesischen, no. 24, first published 1908

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