Barrett Browning's Sonnet 4

Thou hast thy calling to some palace-floor

Jul 18, 2009 Linda Sue Grimes

Elizabeth Barrett Browning's "Sonnet 4" continues the deliberation that results in her dramatic musings on the contrasts between herself and her illustrious suitor.

First Quatrain: “Thou hast thy calling to some palace-floor”

In “Sonnet 4 from Sonnets from the Portuguese,” the speaker addresses her suitor, again continuing the metaphorical comparison between the two lovers in a similar vain as she did with Sonnet 3; again, she notes her suitor’s invitations to perform for royalty, “Thou hast thy calling to some palace-floor.” He is a “[m]ost gracious singer of high poems,” and the royal guests eagerly stop dancing to listen to him recite his poetry.

Second Quatrain: “And dost thou lift this house's latch too poor”

In the second quatrain, the speaker poses a rhetorical two-part question: being one of such high breeding and accomplishment, are you sure that you want to visit one who is lower class than you? Are you sure that you do not mind reciting your substantial and rich poetry in such a low class place with one who is not of your high station?

First Tercet “Look up and see the casement broken in”

The speaker then commands her royalty-worthy suitor to take a good look at where she lives. The windows of her house are in disrepair, and she cannot afford to have “the bats and owlets” removed from the nests they have built in the roof of her house.

The final line of the first sestet offers a marvelous comparison that metaphorically states the difference between the suitor and speaker: “My cricket chirps against thy mandolin.” On the literal level, she is only a plain woman living in a pastoral setting with simple possessions, while he is the opposite, cosmopolitan and richly endowed, famous enough to be summoned by royalty, possessing the expensive musical instrument with which he can embellish his already distinguished art.

Her “crickets” also represent her own poems, which she likens to herself, poor creatures compared to the “high poems” and royal music of the suitor. The suitor’s “mandolin,” therefore, literally exemplifies wealth and leisure. Because it accompanies his poetry performance, it figuratively serves as a counterpart to the lowly crickets of the speaker.

Second Tercet: “Hush, call no echo up in further proof”

The speaker again makes a gentle demand of her suitor, begging him, please do not be concerned or troubled for my rumblings about poverty and my lowly station. The speaker is asserting her belief that it is simply her natural mode of expression; her “voice within” is one that is given to melancholy, even as his voice is given to singing cheerfully.

The speaker implies that because she has lived “alone, aloof,” it is only natural that her voice would reveal her loneliness and thus contrast herself somewhat negatively with one as illustrious as her suitor.

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Elizabeth Barrett Browning