| Higginson and Bigelow, comps. American Sonnets. 1891. | | | | Robert Browning | | By Christopher Pearse Cranch (1813–1892) |
| | | THEMES strong—verse bloodwarm with the limbs and veins | |
| Of life at full-flush—yet as when one sees | |
| Some unknown Grecian youth Praxiteles | |
| Or Phidias raised from flesh on Attic plains | |
| Into perennial marble—the coarse stains | 5 |
| Of corporal frailty cleansed by ministries | |
| Of art divine from all impurities— | |
| Till of crude fact the living soul remains: | |
| So, with the touch of genius wrought this seer | |
| Of passion and of truth, till heart and mind | 10 |
| Share in the vigor of the fleshly frame, | |
| Though palpable to sense his forms appear, | |
| In the soul’s life transfigured and refined, | |
| The higher art that nature makes they claim. | | | | |
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