Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s “Sonnet 12” from Sonnets from the Portuguese finds the speaker musing on the euphoria of being in love with such an illustrious soul as her belovèd.
First Quatrain: “Indeed this very love which is my boast”
The speaker acknowledges the effects that her new love is having on her. She blushes when she thinks about her good fortune. She now feels entitled to “boast” about her great luck, and she believes that anyone who sees her will realize the love glow that she reflects from “breast to brow.”
Her heart beats faster and as the blood rushes to her face she knows that her face becomes a beckon pronouncing to the world her “inner cost.” Her privacy is thus shattered by her inability to hide her joyful circumstances.
Second Quatrain: “This love even, all my worth, to the uttermost”
The speaker then makes a startling declaration that she would not have even been able to love as she does now, if her suitor has not “shown [her] how.” Every asset in her possession would never have afforded her the opportunity to understand the depth of love and the way it overtakes the mind and heart without his model.
However, because of the brilliant example her suitor has supplied, she has gradually come to understand the significance of her growing affection and that glorious state of affairs that began the very moment their eyes first met.
First Tercet: “And love called love. And thus, I cannot speak”
At that momentous occasion when the two lovers first gazed profoundly into each other’s eyes, she realized for the first time the beauty of naming that magnificent emotion “love,” for it was then that for her, indeed, “love called love.”
Not only was the emotion named, but the emotion itself was also called forth. It lay deep within her heart, and her lover called it forth into her consciousness. She still “cannot speak” about love without realizing the presence of her lover. For her, love and her suitor are intensely bound, for he “snatched up” her soul when it was “all faint and weak.”
Second Tercet: “And placed it by thee on a golden throne”
After rescuing her fainting, weak soul, her suitor lifted her up and placed her alongside himself “on a golden throne.” She metaphorically compares this blissful love to a valuable royal asset, which is compatible with the many other references to royalty she has used to describe her belovèd.
Again, she gives full credit to her belovèd for her ability to love so profoundly, even as she reminds her soul, “we must be meek.” She realizes that she must never lose her sense of humility, as she confirms that her love comes “by thee only, whom I love alone.”
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