The speaker pleads with her beloved to use the pet name she answered to as a child. That name belongs to a time of innocence, when she’d look up from play into the affectionate eyes of people now gone. Their fond voices, she says, are part of heaven’s music and speak to her no more; instead, there’s a heavy silence, like the stillness around a coffin, while she desperately calls out to God. She wants her lover’s voice to inherit what the dead can no longer give — to blend the northern flowers of that early, lost affection with the southern bloom of their present love. If he will call her by that intimate name, she promises to answer at once, with the exact same heart she had then. The mood is tender and aching, full of longing to revive a cherished past within the safety of an adult devotion, so that nothing precious is left behind.
Sonnet 33 - Yes, call me by my pet-name! let me hear — Summary
Yes, call me by my pet-name! let me hear The name I used to run at, when a child, From innocent play, and leave the cowslips piled, To glance up in some face that proved me dear With the look of its eyes. I miss the clear Fond voices which, being drawn and reconciled Into the music of Heaven's undefiled, Call me no longer. Silence on the bier, While I call God—call God!—So let thy mouth Be heir to those who are now exanimate. Gather the north flowers to complete the south, And catch the early love up in the late. Yes, call me by that name,—and I, in truth, With the same heart, will answer and not wait.