Sonnet VI. page 218

Sonnet 6 by Elizabeth Barret Browning is a very interesting sonnet that uses a Petrarch style with a rhyme scheme of ABBA ABBA CDC DCD. This particular sonnet is in a group of poems written for her husband Robert Browning in a series of sonnets called “Sonnets from the Portuguese” where she describes her love for him. In this poem she is attempting to explain how she doesn’t feel like she is good enough for her lover and that he should leave her which she concisely explains by starting the sonnet with “Go from me.” Throughout the rest of the poem the goal seems to be to explain that even if they are no longer together that she was so impacted by this lover that she will never be able to live life without thinking about him. This poem gives the feeling that she just wants to explain how much of an impact this person has made on her life and how much they mean to her now and that she will never feel separated from his soul. She uses a lot of examples to emphasize how she will always think of him when doing everything. Some of these included lifting her hand in the sunshine because now she will think of how he had touched her hand, and the last part where she says that even when she is talking to God he will see “the tears of two”, meaning that even when praying she will pray for him along with herself. The poem doesn’t seem to make any dramatic turn of events of the poet's thoughts or feelings. This said the octave really explains the impact of her lover on her life and how she won’t be able to live an individual life anymore. The typical place for the volta does allow for a slight change in course for the poem in which the poet then is describing exactly how close she feels to her lover even without being in his presence and she highlights a few aspects of how this is and how she feels.