| Arthur Quiller-Couch, comp. The Oxford Book of Victorian Verse. 1922. | | | | The Lost Mistress | | By Robert Browning (1812–1889) |
| | | ALL ’S over, then: does truth sound bitter | |
| As one at first believes? | |
| Hark, ’tis the sparrows’ good-night twitter | |
| About your cottage eaves! | |
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| And the leaf-buds on the vine are woolly, | 5 |
| I noticed that, to-day; | |
| One day more bursts them open fully | |
| —You know the red turns gray. | |
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| To-morrow we meet the same then, dearest? | |
| May I take your hand in mine? | 10 |
| Mere friends are we,—well, friends the merest | |
| Keep much that I resign: | |
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| For each glance of the eye so bright and black, | |
| Though I keep with heart’s endeavour,— | |
| Your voice, when you wish the snowdrops back, | 15 |
| Tho’ it stay in my soul for ever!— | |
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| Yet I will but say what mere friends say, | |
| Or only a thought stronger; | |
| I will hold your hand but as long as all may, | |
| Or so very little longer! | 20 | | | |
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