I have no idea of the source of this poem and hope John can pitch in and tell us something about it.
Elizabeth Barrett to Robert Browning
Come in,
O Heart to fill my heart,
Come in!
The rusty latch
Is sprung:
No crimson key
Has flung
Its chiseled teeth
Into the lock
Wherewith it open lies;
But as blue Twilight
With a sudden quiet might
Lays siege of sunny Day
And makes her starry Night,
So you have undone me.
O heart to fill this heart
Come in!
Evelyn Coffey
Oh I love this poem! I will look through my "Evelyn Box" next week and see if I can come up with anything about this poem!
ReplyDeleteThank you Pat... this blog makes me SO happy!
This poem is not one Evelyn had ever recited to us, but one I'd read after she had died. It shocked me to think of her not only as the spiritual mystic that she had become late in life, but also as the woman she had been in her youth, longing for sexual union. Can this poem be read without recognizing the erotic invitation, the long-delayed (rusty latch) fulfillment of unused capacity?
ReplyDeleteI sat and looked again at Evelyn, her quiet, deep smile, and thought of the theory of Mona Lisa's similar smile, that she was pregnant. and there was Evelyn, pregnant with God, smiling, the spiritual mystic, smiling, smiling.