Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s Sonnet 5  “I lift my heavy heart up solemnly”

Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s Sonnet 5 from Sonnets from the Portuguese focuses on the speaker’s lack of confidence that her budding relationship will continue to grow.

Introduction with Text of Sonnet 5 “I lift my heavy heart up solemnly”

The speaker’s lack of confidence in her own value as a person and poet makes her doubt that  budding relationship will continue to blossom.  

Her little dramas continue to exude her lack of self esteem, while she also makes it known the she holds her beloved in the highest regard.  Likely she feels unworthy of such an accomplished individual.

Sonnet 5 “I lift my heavy heart up solemnly”

I lift my heavy heart up solemnly,
As once Electra her sepulchral urn,
And, looking in thine eyes, I overturn
The ashes at thy feet. Behold and see
What a great heap of grief lay hid in me,
And how the red wild sparkles dimly burn
Through the ashen greyness. If thy foot in scorn
Could tread them out to darkness utterly,
It might be well perhaps. But if instead
Thou wait beside me for the wind to blow
The grey dust up,… those laurels on thine head,
O My beloved, will not shield thee so,
That none of all the fires shall scorch and shred
The hair beneath. Stand further off then! Go.

Reading  

Commentary on Sonnet 5  “I lift my heavy heart up solemnly”

The speaker in sonnet 5 focuses on her lack of confidence that her budding relationship will continue to grow.

First Quatrain:  Dramatic Ashes

I lift my heavy heart up solemnly,
As once Electra her sepulchral urn,
And, looking in thine eyes, I overturn
The ashes at thy feet. Behold and see

In the first quatrain of Sonnet 5 from Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s Sonnets from the Portuguese, the speaker likens her heart to the urn held by Electra, who thought she was holding the ashes of her dead brother Orestes in Sophocles’ tragic Greek play, Electra. The speaker is raising the “sepulchral urn” of her heart to her beloved, and then suddenly, she spills the ashes at his feet. She commands him to look at those ashes.

The speaker has established in her opening sonnets that not only is she but a humble poet shielded from the eyes of society, but she is also one who has suffered greatly from physical maladies as well as mental anguish.  She has suffered thinking that she may never have the opportunity to love and be loved.

Second Quatrain:  Dropping Grief

What a great heap of grief lay hid in me,
And how the red wild sparkles dimly burn
Through the ashen greyness. If thy foot in scorn
Could tread them out to darkness utterly

The speaker continues the metaphor of her heart as filled with ashes by commanding her beloved to look and see, “What a great heap of grief lay hid in me.” She metaphorically compares the ashes held within the urn of her heart to her grief.

Now she has dropped those ashes of grief at the feet of her beloved. But she notices that there seem to be some live coals in the heap of ashes; her grief is still burning “through the ashen greyness.”  She speculates that if her beloved could stomp out the remaining burning coals of her grief, that might be all well and good.

First Tercet:  Burning Coals of Grief

It might be well perhaps. But if instead
Thou wait beside me for the wind to blow
The grey dust up,… those laurels on thine head,

If, however, he does not tread on those burning coals of grief and merely remains still beside her, the wind will stir up those ashes, and they may land on the head of the beloved, a head that is garlanded with laurels.

It will be remembered that the speaker has, in the two preceding sonnets, made it clear that her beloved has prestige and the attention of royalty. Thus, he is as one who is declared a winner with the reward of laurels.

Second Tercet:  In the Throes of Sorrow

O My beloved, will not shield thee so,
That none of all the fires shall scorch and shred
The hair beneath. Stand further off then! Go.

The speaker avers that even those laurels will not be able to protect his hair from being singed, once the wind has blown those live coals upon his head. She therefore bids him, “Stand farther off then! go.”

In the throes of incredible sorrow, the speaker is awakening slowly to the possibility that she can be loved by someone whom she deems her superior in every way. Her head is bare, not garlanded with laurels as is his.

She must give him leave to forsake her because she believes that he will do so after he fully comprehends who she really is.   Although she, of course, hopes he will protest and remain beside her, she does not want to deceive herself, falsely believing that he will, in fact, remain with her.