Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s Sonnet 33 “Yes, call me by my pet-name! let me hear”

Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s Sonnet 33 “Yes, call me by my pet-name! let me hear”

In sonnet 33 “Yes, call me by my pet-name! let me hear,” the speaker relives a happy event of her childhood after her belovèd calls her by her childhood nickname.  She is taking every opportunity to experience joyful feelings, after suffering through deep melancholy for most of her life.

Introduction and Text of Sonnet 33 “Yes, call me by my pet-name! let me hear”

In Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s  sonnet 33 “Yes, call me by my pet-name! let me hear”from Sonnets from the Portuguese, the speaker encourages her belovèd to call her by her childhood “pet-name” because it reminds her of a happy time in her life.  She appears to be taking pains to remain in a positive frame of mind.

The speaker is not only composing a loving tribute to her belovèd, but she is also revealing her journey from psychological misery to mental and physical happiness in a relationship.  

Sonnet 33 “Yes, call me by my pet-name! let me hear”

Yes, call me by my pet-name! let me hear
The name I used to run at, when a child,
From innocent play, and leave the cowslips piled,
To glance up in some face that proved me dear
With the look of its eyes. I miss the clear
Fond voices which, being drawn and reconciled
Into the music of Heaven’s undefiled,
Call me no longer. Silence on the bier,
While I call God—call God!—So let thy mouth
Be heir to those who are now exanimate. Gather the north flowers to complete the south,
And catch the early love up in the late.
Yes, call me by that name,—and I, in truth,
With the same heart, will answer and not wait.

Reading of Sonnet 33

Commentary on Sonnet 33 “Yes, call me by my pet-name! let me hear”

 In Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s Sonnet 33 “Yes, call me by my pet-name! let me hear,” the speaker is reliving a happy event of her childhood after her belovèd calls her by her childhood nickname.

First Quatrain:   A Memory from Childhood

Yes, call me by my pet-name! let me hear
The name I used to run at, when a child,
From innocent play, and leave the cowslips piled,
To glance up in some face that proved me dear

The speaker addresses her belovèd; she exclaims, “Yes, call me by my pet-name!”—which indicates that he has, perhaps out-of-the-blue, called her by that name. Her reaction seems to surprise her, and she encourages him to continue to call her by that name.

The surprised speaker remembers that as a child a family member (or some other person whom she loved and respected) would call her by her pet-name to come from whatever she was playing so innocently as children are wont to do.

And she would then come running, leaving behind a pile of flowers that she had gathered.  The speaker, as that child she is now remembering, would look up into the pleasant face of the one who had called her and feel that she was cherished as she saw that love was beaming from the eyes of that person.

Second Quatrain:  The Silence of the Departed

With the look of its eyes. I miss the clear
Fond voices which, being drawn and reconciled
Into the music of Heaven’s undefiled,
Call me no longer. Silence on the bier,

The speaker reports that she misses those sweet beloved voices that called to her, for now those voice are silent and are residing in “Heaven,” from where they can no longer be heard calling to her.  There is only silence emanated from a coffin-like locus.   The speaker is once again drifting into her customary melancholy, decrying the silence that now emanates from the deceased.

The speaker does not identify who these “voices” are: it could be a mother, father, aunt, uncle, or any relative or friend by whom she felt loved when they called her by her pet-name.   The speaker’s emphasis is on the feeling she is trying to recollect, however, not on the specific individual who engendered that fond feeling.

First Tercet:  Appealing to God

While I call God—call God!—So let thy mouth
Be heir to those who are now exanimate. Gather the north flowers to complete the south,

Continuing in the melancholy vein, the speaker reveals that with those fond voices silent in death, she called on God in her grief. She emphasizes her appeal to God by repeating, “call God—call God!” The speaker then urges her belovèd to let those words fall from his lips—that same words in her pet-name that came from her belovèds who are now deceased.

As she asks him to do as her loving relatives had done and call her by her pet-name.  She is being taken her back to a fond past memory. Her belovèd suitor is then “gather[ing] the north flowers to complete the south.”   She metaphorically likens direction to time: north is past, south is present.

Second Tercet:  Past Pleasantry, Present Passion

And catch the early love up in the late.
Yes, call me by that name,—and I, in truth,
With the same heart, will answer and not wait.

The emotional speaker adds that by hearing her present love speak those nostalgic words, the two loves coalesce and  begin drawing together her past pleasantry with the present that now holds so much love for her.

Again the speaker exhorts him, “yes, call me by that name.” And she adds that she will respond to him, feeling the same love that she felt before—this love that will not allow her to procrastinate in her response to his fond gesture.