Barrett Browning's Sonnet 3

Unlike are we, unlike, O princely Heart!

Jul 14, 2009 Linda Sue Grimes

The speaker in Sonnet 3 muses on how unlikely it seems that a plain singer such as herself would begin a relationship with a person who attracted royalty.

The speaker in Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s “Sonnet 3” from Sonnets from the Portuguese contemplates the differences between her beloved and herself. Continuing the sequence with the Petrarchan sonnet form, the speaker dramatizes her musings as they focus on her relationship with her beloved partner.

First Quatrain: “Unlike are we, unlike, O princely Heart!”

The speaker proclaims, “Unlike are we, unlike O princely Heart!” They perform very different services in life, and they have vastly different “destinies.” She offers the fascinating image of two angels “who look surprise / On one another, as they strike athwart / / Their wings in passing.”

The couple has guardian angels who are somewhat taken aback that two such different mortals should find each other and begin a sustained relationship. They angels flutter their wings incomprehensibly as they observe the couple.

Second Quatrain: “Their wings in passing. Thou, bethink thee, art”

The speaker observes that her beloved is often “a guest for queens to social pageantries.” The shy and retiring speaker contrasts her low lot with one whose social skills so shine as to put him in the company of royalty. The people he must meet at such gala affairs must stare at him with “a hundred brighter eyes” than hers; even her tears are not sufficient to make her eyes as bright as what he must experience at such high societal events.

First Tercet: “Of chief musician. What hast thou to do”

Unlike this lowly “singer,” her beloved plays the role “[o]f chief musician” at these galas. She has to wonder that he would give her a second glance after experiencing all the glitter and glamour on display at those upper class affairs.

The speaker then poses a question to her beloved, wishing to find out why one such as he should be “looking from the lattice-lights” at one such as she. She wonders why one who can easily mingle with royalty could appear like a commoner, as he “lean[s] up a cypress tree” and peers up at her through her shaded-window.

Second Tercet: “The dark, and leaning up a cypress tree?”

The speaker finally remarks that her beloved has “chrism” on his head, while she has only “dew.” The precious oil coupled with plain dew astonishes her, and she conjures the image, “Death must dig the level where these agree.” On the material plain and in a clearly class-based society, she cannot reconcile the differences; thus, she asserts that she will just allow “Death” to determine the meaning and progression of it all.

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Elizabeth Barrett Browning