Robert Browning                     The Lost Mistress All's over, then: does truth sound bitter     As one at first believes? Hark, 'tis the sparrows' good-night twitter     About your cottage eaves! And the leaf-buds on the vine are woolly,     I noticed that, to-day; One day more bursts them open fully     -You know the red turns gray. To-morrow we meet the same then, dearest?     May I take your hand in mine? Mere friends are we,-well, friends the merest     Keep much that I resign: 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,     Though it stay in my soul for ever! 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! 1845