A sonnet to Elizabeth Barrett Browning in response to Mindlovemisery’s Menagerie Friday Night Music Prompt #52: Virginia Woolf, Indigo Girls
You were weak of body but strong of mind,
At four a bookworm, a precocious child,
Your father’s little Poet Laureate,
Who became addicted to opiates.
Illness and loss almost drove you insane,
Laudanum and morphine helped kill the pain,
Fuelling your wild imagination,
Saved by ardent religious persuasion.
Full of ‘fresh strange music’ and ‘brave new thought’,
Robert loved your verses with all his heart;
Politics, letters and your poetry
Brought secret love, marriage and Italy.
Disinherited daughter in a man’s age
Died ‘Beautiful’, a woman of the page.
© Kim M. Russell, 2016
Image found on www.poets.org
Excellent!
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Thank you!
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A wonderful homage — she was truly a woman of the page. Thanks so much for participating.
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Thank you for reading😊
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