Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Elizabeth Barrett Browning wrote personal poems while she was in her courtship with Robert Browning. In these sonnets, her pure love for Robert can be seen. It is evident that she did not write these sonnets with the intention of publishing them. She wrote them with her whole heart solely for Robert.

Sonnet 21 was an emotional poem about her love but still filled with sadness. The beginning starts off with her pleading to Robert.

“Say over again, and yet once over again,
That thou dost love me” (ln 1-2)

Throughout the poem she is pleading with Robert to tell her over and over again that he loves her so that she can be reassured that his feelings are as strong for her as hers are for him. She says that repeated over and over again, it seems like a cuckoo-song. He treats it unimportant but she reminds him

“Remember, never to the hill or plain,
Valley and wood, without her cuckoo-strain
Comes the fresh Spring in all her green completed” (ln 4-5)

She is saying that even though the cuckoo song seems repetitive and unnecessary at times, there is nowhere that spring will ever come to without first the sound of the “cuckoo-strain.” Her doubt in his love begins to show in the next lines.

“Beloved, I, amid the darkness greeted
By a doubtful spirit-voice, in that doubt’s pain
Cry, “Speak once more – thou lovest!” (ln 7-10)

She seems to doubt his love for her and feels that she is in the dark in their love. She wants him to reassure her and make her feel that she should not have to doubt. He must do it with more than his words though because even though she is hearing him tell her that he loves her over and over again she still has doubt inside of her. She questions whether there he can tell her too many times that he loves her and uses examples such as the stars and flowers saying that there never can be too many.

“Who can fear
Too many stars, though each in heaven shall roll,
Too many flowers, though each shall crown the year?” (ln 9-11)

She finally exclaims using repetition to get her point across to him, “Say thou dost love me, love me, love me.” She yearns to feel his love and is pleading with him to give it to her. The last line of the poem is key to her feelings and how she is really feeling. She says

“ – only minding, Dear, to love me also in silence with thy soul” (ln 14)

He can tell her that he loves her over and over again, but until he really means it, she will be able to tell that he does not mean it with his soul.