Page:Poems - volume 1 - EBBrowning (1844).pdf/277

Said he—"Wake me by no gesture,—sound of breath, or stir of vesture;
Let the blessed apparition melt not yet to its divine!
No approaching—hush! no breathing! or my heart must swoon to death in
The too utter life thou bringest—O thou dream of Geraldine!"

Ever, evermore the while in a slow silence she kept smiling—
But the tears ran over lightly from her eyes, and tenderly;
"Dost thou, Bertram, truly love me? Is no woman far above me.
Found more worthy of thy poet-heart, than such a one as I?"

Said he—"I would dream so ever, like the flowing of that river.
Flowing ever in a shadow, greenly onward to the sea;
So, thou vision of all sweetness—princely to a full completeness,—
Would my heart and life flow onward—deathward—through this dream of thee!"