Methinks we do as fretful children do,
  Leaning their faces on the window-pane
  To sigh the glass dim with their own breath’s stain,
And shut the sky and landscape from their view;
And, thus, alas! since God the maker drew
  A mystic separation ’twixt...

What was he doing, the great god Pan,
  Down in the reeds by the river?
Spreading ruin and scattering ban,
Splashing and paddling with hoofs of a goat,
And breaking the golden lilies afloat
  With the dragon-fly on the river?

He tore out a reed,...

True genius, but true woman! dost deny
Thy woman’s nature with a manly scorn,
And break away the gauds and armlets worn
By weaker women in captivity?
Ah, vain denial! that revolted cry
Is sobbed in by a woman’s voice forlorn;
Thy woman’s hair, my...

By B. R. Haydon
WORDSWORTH upon Helvellyn! Let the cloud
Ebb audibly along the mountain-wind,
Then break against the rock, and show behind
The lowland valleys floating up to crowd
The sense with beauty. He, with forehead bowed
And humble-lidded eyes...

1861
over the dumb campagna-sea,
  Out in the offing through mist and rain,
Saint Peter’s Church heaves silently
  Like a mighty ship in pain,
  Facing the tempest with struggle and strain.

Motionless waifs of ruined towers,
  Soundless...

From “Aurora Leigh”
WHOEVER lives true life, will love true love.
I learned to love that England. Very oft,
Before the day was born, or otherwise
Through secret windings of the afternoons,
I threw my hunters off and plunged myself
Among the deep...

Sienna
I Love thee, love thee, Giulio!
  Some call me cold, and some demure,
And if thou hast ever guessed that so
  I love thee … well;—the proof was poor,
  And no one could be sure.

Before thy song (with shifted rhymes
  To suit my name...

Her hair was tawny with gold, her eyes with purple were dark,
Her cheeks’ pale opal burnt with a red and restless spark.

Never was lady of Milan nobler in name and in race;
Never was lady of Italy fairer to see in the face.

Never was lady on earth more true as...