The Soul’s Expression
The Soul’s Expression Lyrics
I strive and struggle to deliver right
That music of my nature, day and night
With dream and thought and feeling interwound
And only answering all the senses round
With octaves of a mystic depth and height
Which step out grandly to the infinite
From the dark edges of the sensual ground
This song of soul I struggle to outbear
Through portals of the sense, sublime and whole
And utter all myself into the air:
But if I did it,—as the thunder-roll
Breaks its own cloud, my flesh would perish there
Before that dread apocalypse of soul
About
The speaker of this poem is either Elizabeth Barrett Browning herself or another unnamed speaker. The speaker is striving to be heard, make a mark, and “deliver right / that music of my nature.” There is a clear thread of sound imagery woven throughout the entire poem.
The poetic tone conveyed here is one of urgency–there is a clear drive and desire conveyed throughout the poem and yet the reader gets the sense that the speaker is running out of time. The poem takes more of a somber tone in the last three lines that only contribute to this feeling.
It is an Italian sonnet with an ABBA ABBA CDCDCD rhyme scheme.
Each of the fourteen lines has 10 syllables (with the exception of the first line that can be read to have either 10 or 11).
Q&A
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