Elizabeth Barrett Browning - Portugese XXVI lyrics
[Elizabeth Barrett Browning - Portugese XXVI lyrics]
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, belovèd, what they seemed
Their shining fronts
Their songs, their splendours
(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
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, belovèd, what they seemed
Their shining fronts
Their songs, their splendours
(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