Text 26

Bright star, would I were stedfast as thou art –

Not in lone splendor hung aloft the night,

And watching, with eternal lids apart,

Like nature's patient, sleepless eremite,

The moving waters at their priestlike task

Of pure ablution round earth's human shores,

Or gazing on the new soft-fallen mask

Of snow upon the mountains and the moors;

No – yet still stedfast, still unchangeable,

Pillow'd upon my fair love's ripening breast,

To feel for ever its soft swell and fall,

Awake for ever in a sweet unrest,

Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath,

And so live ever – or else swoon to death.

3.4 How do I love thee? Let me count the ways…

In the 19^th century, women began to take a more prominent place in literature. In 1850, a collection of 44 sonnets entitled Sonnets from the Portugese was published. The author, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, then 44 years old, made an attempt to disguise their personal nature by giving the impression they were translations. But those were not translated from Portuguese; they were an entirely original expression of her love for her husband, Robert Browning.

Her sonnets display a woman's passion clearly. Some critics would frown at their technical merits, but anyway genuine passion shines brightly through. In fact, what preceded the book was an astonishing love affair. The soul of what woman was transformed by a most improbable love (Text 27).