607. The Lost Mistress by Robert Browning
Robert Browning read by Classic Poetry Aloud\n\nwww.classicpoetryaloud.com\nTwitter: @classicpoetry\nFacebook: www.facebook.com/poetryaloud\n\nGiving voice to the poetry of the past.\n\n---------------------------------------------\n\n The Lost Mistress\nby Robert Browning (1812 \u2013 1889)\n\nAll 's over, then: does truth sound bitter\n As one at first believes?\nHark, 'tis the sparrows' good-night twitter\n About your cottage eaves!\nAnd the leaf-buds on the vine are woolly,\n I noticed that, to-day;\nOne day more bursts them open fully\n \u2014You know the red turns gray.\n\nTo-morrow we meet the same then, dearest?\n May I take your hand in mine?\nMere friends are we,\u2014well, friends the merest\n Keep much that I resign:\n\nFor each glance of the eye so bright and black,\n Though I keep with heart's endeavour,\u2014\nYour voice, when you wish the snowdrops back,\n Though it stay in my soul for ever!\u2014\n\nYet I will but say what mere friends say,\n Or only a thought stronger;\nI will hold your hand but as long as all may,\n Or so very little longer!\n\n\nReading \xa9 Classic Poetry Aloud, 2008.