Sonnets From The Portuguese XXVI
By Elizabeth Barrett Browning
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 worlds dust, their lutes did silent grow,
And I myself grew faint and blind below
Their vanishing eyes. Then thou didst come, to be,
Belovd, 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 Gods gifts put mans best dreams to shame.