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Of the sweet years, the dear and wished-for years,

Who each one in a gracious hand appears

To bear a gift for mortals, old or young:

And, as I mused it in his antique tongue,

I saw, in gradual vision through my tears,

The sweet, sad years, the melancholy years.

Those of my own life, who by turns had flung

A shadow across me. Straightway I was ’ware,

So weeping, how a mystic Shape did move

Behind me, and drew me backward by the hair;

And a voice said in mastery, while I strove,—

“Guess now who holds thee?”—“Death,” I said. But there,

The silver answer rang.—“Not Death, but Love.”

E. B. Browning (Sonnets from the Portuguese).

This is the first of the chain of sonnets, which Mrs. Browning called “Sonnets from the Portuguese.” They tell her own love-story, and were written in secret and without thought of publication. Robert Browning learnt of them only the year after the marriage, and then insisted on their being published. They include some of the finest sonnets in our language.

To appreciate this and the other sonnets, it is necessary to know the beautiful story of the two poets. Mrs. Browning was six years older than her husband and a life-long invalid, expecting, as she says in this sonnet, Death rather than Love. Their marriage was supremely happy, and the great poet, when in England, used to visit the church in which they were married to express his thankfulness. He tells the love-story in the next quotation.