Home ⇒ 📌Elizabeth Barrett Browning ⇒ Sonnet 26 – I lived with visions for my company
Sonnet 26 – I lived with visions for my company
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.
(2 votes, average: 3.50 out of 5)
Related poetry:
- Speak, God Of Visions O, thy bright eyes must answer now, When Reason, with a scornful brow, Is mocking at my overthrow! O, thy sweet tongue must plead for me, And tell why I have chosen thee! Stern Reason is to judgment come, Arrayed in all her forms of gloom: Wilt thou, my advocate, be dumb? No, radiant angel, […]...
- I lived on Dread I lived on Dread To Those who know The Stimulus there is In Danger Other impetus Is numb and Vitalless As ’twere a Spur upon the Soul A Fear will urge it where To go without the Sceptre’s aid Were Challenging Despair....
- There was a man who lived a life of fire There was a man who lived a life of fire. Even upon the fabric of time, Where purple becomes orange And orange purple, This life glowed, A dire red stain, indelible; Yet when he was dead, He saw that he had not lived....
- I Have Lived With Shades I I have lived with Shades so long, So long have talked to them, I sped to street and throng, That sometimes they In their dim style Will pause awhile To hear my say; II And take me by the hand, And lead me through their rooms In the To-Be, where Dooms Half-wove and shapeless […]...
- The last Night that She lived The last Night that She lived It was a Common Night Except the Dying this to Us Made Nature different We noticed smallest things Things overlooked before By this great light upon our Minds Italicized as ’twere. As We went out and in Between Her final Room And Rooms where Those to be alive Tomorrow […]...
- Rules and visions Life counts The rules; The sunset, their exceptions. Rain drinks up The centuries; Spring, our dreams. The eagle sees The sunrays And youth, the visions....
- He Has Lived In Many Houses furnished rooms, flats, a hayloft, A tent, motels, under a table, Under an overturned rowboat, in a villa (briefly) but not, As yet, a yurt. In these places He has slept, eaten, Put his forehead to the window glass, Looking out. He’s in a stilt-house now, The water passing beneath him half the day; The […]...
- He lived the Life of Ambush He lived the Life of Ambush And went the way of Dusk And now against his subtle name There stands an Asterisk As confident of him as we Impregnable we are The whole of Immortality intrenched Within a star...
- How Robin and His Outlaws Lived in The Woods Robin and his merry men : Lived just like the birds; They had almost as many tracks as thoughts, : And whistles and songs as words. Up they were with the earliest sign Of the sun’s up-looking eye; But not an archer breakfasted Till he twinkled from the sky. All the morning they were wont […]...
- There was a land where lived no violets There was a land where lived no violets. A traveller at once demanded : “Why?” The people told him: “Once the violets of this place spoke thus: ‘Until some woman freely gives her lover To another woman We will fight in bloody scuffle.'” Sadly the people added: “There are no violets here.”...
- These saw Visions These saw Visions Latch them softly These held Dimples Smooth them slow This addressed departing accents Quick Sweet Mouth to miss thee so This We stroked Unnumbered Satin These we held among our own Fingers of the Slim Aurora Not so arrogant this Noon These adjust that ran to meet us Pearl for Stocking Pearl […]...
- Sonnet 23 – Is it indeed so? If I lay here dead Is it indeed so? If I lay here dead, Wouldst thou miss any life in losing mine? And would the sun for thee more coldly shine Because of grave-damps falling round my head? I marvelled, my Beloved, when I read Thy thought so in the letter. I am thine- But. . . so much to […]...
- A Musical Instrument 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, the great god Pan, From the deep cool bed of […]...
- Sonnet 43 – How do I love thee? Let me count the ways How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. I love thee to the depth and breadth and height My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight For the ends of Being and ideal Grace. I love thee to the level of everyday’s Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light. I love thee […]...
- City Visions I As the blind Milton’s memory of light, The deaf Beethoven’s phantasy of tone, Wroght joys for them surpassing all things known In our restricted sphere of sound and sight, So while the glaring streets of brick and stone Vix with heat, noise, and dust from morn till night, I will give rein to Fancy, […]...
- Sonnet II Her courts are by the flux of flaming ways, Between the rivers and the illumined sky Whose fervid depths reverberate from on high Fierce lustres mingled in a fiery haze. They mark it inland; blithe and fair of face Her suitors follow, guessing by the glare Beyond the hilltops in the evening air How bright […]...
- This House Which Is Lived In This house which is lived in resounds With the chorus of voices bound in the press Of its generous, unconcealed blessings; Affection is neither distressed nor restrained, Nor caught in the intricate mesh of wicker And wire-ordered veins of its living construction, Contained within gentle, carbon-breathing walls. The halls are hung with wooded reminders that […]...
- Sonnet XXXII: Blest As the Gods Blest as the Gods! Sicilian Maid is he, The youth whose soul thy yielding graces charm; Who bound, O! thraldom sweet! by beauty’s arm, In idle dalliance fondly sports with thee! Blest as the Gods! that iv’ry throne to see, Throbbing with transports, tender, timid, warm! While round thy fragrant lips zephyrs swarm! As op’ning […]...
- Sonnet X: To Nothing Fitter To nothing fitter can I thee compare Than to the son of some rich penny-father, Who, having now brought on his end with care, Leaves to his son all he had heap’d together; This new rich novice, lavish of his chest, To one man gives, doth on another spend, Then here he riots, yet among […]...
- The Jolly Company The stars, a jolly company, I envied, straying late and lonely; And cried upon their revelry: “O white companionship! You only In love, in faith unbroken dwell, Friends radiant and inseparable!” Light-heart and glad they seemed to me And merry comrades (EVEN SO GOD OUT OF HEAVEN MAY LAUGH TO SEE THE HAPPY CROWDS; AND […]...
- Sonnet 09 – Can it be right to give what I can give? Can it be right to give what I can give? To let thee sit beneath the fall of tears As salt as mine, and hear the sighing years Re-sighing on my lips renunciative Through those infrequent smiles which fail to live For all thy adjurations? O my fears, That this can scarce be right! We […]...
- Against Evil Company Why should I join with those in Play, In whom I’ve no delight, Who curse and swear, but never pray, Who call ill Names, and fight. I hate to hear a wanton Song, Their Words offend my Ears: I should not dare defile my Tongue With Language such as theirs. Away from Fools I’ll turn […]...
- Mockingbirds This morning Two mockingbirds In the green field Were spinning and tossing The white ribbons Of their songs Into the air. I had nothing Better to do Than listen. I mean this Seriously. In Greece, A long time ago, An old couple Opened their door To two strangers Who were, It soon appeared, Not men […]...
- Summer Dawn My sleeping children are still flying dreams In their goose-down heads. The lush of the river singing morning songs Fish watch their ceilings turn sun-white. The grey-green pike lances upstream Kale, like mermaid’s hair Points the water’s drift. All is morning hush And bird beautiful. I only, I didn’t have flu....
- Sonnet 108: What's in the brain that ink may character What’s in the brain that ink may character Which hath not figured to thee my true spirit? What’s new to speak, what now to register, That may express my love, or thy dear merit? Nothing, sweet boy, but yet, like prayers divine, I must each day say o’er the very same, Counting no old thing […]...
- Sonnet XLIII When most I wink, then do mine eyes best see, For all the day they view things unrespected; But when I sleep, in dreams they look on thee, And darkly bright are bright in dark directed. Then thou, whose shadow shadows doth make bright, How would thy shadow’s form form happy show To the clear […]...
- Sonnet 12 – Indeed this very love which is my boast Indeed this very love which is my boast, And which, when rising up from breast to brow, Doth crown me with a ruby large enow To draw men’s eyes and prove the inner cost,- This love even, all my worth, to the uttermost, I should not love withal, unless that thou Hadst set me an […]...
- Sonnet 43: When most I wink, then do mine eyes best see When most I wink, then do mine eyes best see, For all the day they view things unrespected; But when I sleep, in dreams they look on thee, And darkly bright, are bright in dark directed. Then thou, whose shadow shadows doth make bright, How would thy shadow’s form, form happy show To the clear […]...
- Sonnet 08 – What can I give thee back, O liberal What can I give thee back, O liberal And princely giver, who hast brought the gold And purple of thine heart, unstained, untold, And laid them on the outside of the-wall For such as I to take or leave withal, In unexpected largesse? am I cold, Ungrateful, that for these most manifold High gifts, I […]...
- Wild Orphan Blandly mother Takes him strolling by railroad and by river he’s the son of the absconded hot rod angel And he imagines cars and rides them in his dreams, So lonely growing up among the imaginary automobiles And dead souls of Tarrytown to create Out of his own imagination the beauty of his wild Forebears […]...
- Sonnet CXXXVI If thy soul cheque thee that I come so near, Swear to thy blind soul that I was thy ‘Will,’ And will, thy soul knows, is admitted there; Thus far for love my love-suit, sweet, fulfil. ‘Will’ will fulfil the treasure of thy love, Ay, fill it full with wills, and my will one. In […]...
- With All Thy Gifts WITH all thy gifts, America, (Standing secure, rapidly tending, overlooking the world,) Power, wealth, extent, vouchsafed to thee-With these, and like of these, vouchsafed to thee, What if one gift thou lackest? (the ultimate human problem never solving;) The gift of Perfect Women fit for thee-What of that gift of gifts thou lackest? The towering […]...
- Visions of the worlds vanitie One day, whiles that my daylie cares did sleepe, My spirit, shaking off her earthly prison, Began to enter into meditation deepe Of things exceeding reach of common reason; Such as this age, in which all good is geason, And all that humble is and meane debaced, Hath brought forth in her last declining season, […]...
- Sonnet 136: If thy soul check thee that I come so near If thy soul check thee that I come so near, Swear to thy blind soul that I was thy Will, And will thy soul knows is admitted there; Thus far for love, my love suit, sweet, fulfil. Will will fulfil the treasure of thy love, Ay, fill it full with wills, and my will one. […]...
- Sonnet 29 – I think of thee!-my thoughts do twine and bud I think of thee!-my thoughts do twine and bud About thee, as wild vines, about a tree, Put out broad leaves, and soon there ‘s nought to see Except the straggling green which hides the wood. Yet, O my palm-tree, be it understood I will not have my thoughts instead of thee Who art dearer, […]...
- Sonnet XXXIII GReat wrong I doe, I can it not deny, To that most sacred Empresse my dear dred, Not finishing her Queene of faery, That mote enlarge her liuing prayses dead: But lodwick, this of grace to me aread: Doe ye not thinck th’accomplishment of it, Sufficient worke for one mans simple head, All were it […]...
- I Know I Have Been Happiest I know I have been happiest at your side; But what is done, is done, and all’s to be. And small the good, to linger dolefully- Gayly it lived, and gallantly it died. I will not make you songs of hearts denied, And you, being man, would have no tears of me, And should I […]...
- Each small gleam was a voice Each small gleam was a voice, A lantern voice In little songs of carmine, violet, green, gold. A chorus of colours came over the water; The wondrous leaf-shadow no longer wavered, No pines crooned on the hills, The blue night was elsewhere a silence, When the chorus of colours came over the water, Little songs […]...
- Rose-Morals I. Red. Would that my songs might be What roses make by day and night Distillments of my clod of misery Into delight. Soul, could’st thou bare thy breast As yon red rose, and dare the day, All clean, and large, and calm with velvet rest? Say yea say yea! Ah, dear my Rose, good-bye; […]...
- Thomas Trevelyan Reading in Ovid the sorrowful story of Itys, Son of the love of Tereus and Procne, slain For the guilty passion of Tereus for Philomela, The flesh of him served to Tereus by Procne, And the wrath of Tereus, the murderess pursuing Till the gods made Philomela a nightingale, Lute of the rising moon, and […]...