Unlike Are We, Unlike, O Princely Heart! by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Analysis
"Unlike Are We, Unlike, O Princely Heart!" is also known as "Sonnet 3" from Sonnets from the Portuguese. The poem speaks about the differences between herself and her lover. This is written as a Petrarchan sonnet.
This poem, like most of Elizabeth Browning's sonnets, is a fourteen line Petrachan Sonnet. However, this one has an intersting rhyme scheme. It's ABBAABBACDCDDD. After knowing this, it's obvious why it is one stanza instead of three. It has to be in order to keep the rhythm and rhyme!
Poem
Unlike Are We, Unlike, O Princely Heart! 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 can make mine, to play 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. Published in Sonnets From the Portuguese in 1850.
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Find out more information about this poem and read others like it.
Nationality
Italian
Literary Movement
Victorian, 19th Century
Subjects
Sonnet, Love, Relationship, Death
Find out more information about this poem and read others like it.
Nationality
Italian
Literary Movement
Victorian, 19th Century
Subjects
Sonnet, Love, Relationship, Death