Sonnets from the Portuguese: XXVI
Sonnets from the Portuguese: XXVI
Original Text
A Selection from the Poetry of Elizabeth Barrett Browning. First Series. New Edition. London: Smith, Elder, & Co., 1886. 1: 181-202.
1I lived with visions for my company
2Instead of men and women, years ago,
3And found them gentle mates, nor thought to know
4A sweeter music than they played to me.
5But soon their trailing purple was not free
6Of this world’s dust, their lutes did silent grow,
7And I myself grew faint and blind below
8Their vanishing eyes. Then thou didst come—to be,
9Belovèd, what they seemed. Their shining fronts,
10Their songs, their splendours, (better, yet the same,
11As river-water hallowed into fonts)
12Met in thee, and from out thee overcame
13My soul with satisfaction of all wants:
14Because God’s gifts put man’s best dreams to shame.
Publication Start Year
1850
RPO poem Editors
Marc R. Plamondon
RPO Edition
2007
Form