XXVI

I lived with visions for my company
Instead of men and women, years ago,
And found them gentle mates, nor thought to know
A sweeter music than they played to me.
But soon their trailing purple was not free
Of this world's dust, their lutes did silent grow,
And I myself grew faint and blind below
Their vanishing eyes. Then THOU didst come-to be,
Beloved, what they seemed. Their shining fronts,
Their songs, their splendors (better, yet the same,
As river-water hallowed into fonts),
Met in thee, and from out thee overcame
My soul with satisfaction of all wants:
Because God's gifts put man's best dreams to shame.

(C) Elizabeth Barrett Browning
01/01/2000


Best Poems of Elizabeth Barrett Browning

• Xxx
• Sonnet 24 - Let The Worlds Sharpness, Like A Clasping Knife
• Sonnet 21 - Say Over Again, And Yet Once Over Again
• Sonnet 06 - Go From Me. Yet I Feel That I Shall Stand
• Sonnet 26 - I Lived With Visions For My Company
• The Cry Of The Children
• A Musical Instrument
• The Best Thing In The World
• Sonnet 10 - Yet, Love, Mere Love, Is Beautiful Indeed
• Sonnet 42 - my Future Will Not Copy Fair My Past
• Sonnet Ii
• Sonnet 27 - My Own Beloved, Who Hast Lifted Me
• Sonnet 35 - If I Leave All For Thee, Wilt Thou Exchange
• Bianca Among The Nightingales
• Grief
• Sonnet 36 - When We Met First And Loved, I Did Not Build
• Sonnet 25 - A Heavy Heart, Beloved, Have I Borne
• Sonnet 03 - Unlike Are We, Unlike, O Princely Heart!
• Sonnet 11 - And Therefore If To Love Can Be Desert
• Sonnet 09 - Can It Be Right To Give What I Can Give?
• Sonnet 18 - I Never Gave A Lock Of Hair Away