R Browning read by Classic Poetry Aloud:

http://www.classicpoetryaloud.com/

Giving voice to the poetry of the past.

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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!

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!

First aired: 25 February 2008

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