| Arthur Quiller-Couch, ed. 1919. The Oxford Book of English Verse: 1250–1900. |
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| Robert Browning. 1812–1889 |
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| 722. Earl Mertoun's Song |
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| THERE 's a woman like a dewdrop, she 's so purer than the purest; | |
| And her noble heart 's the noblest, yes, and her sure faith's the surest: | |
| And her eyes are dark and humid, like the depth on depth of lustre | |
| Hid i' the harebell, while her tresses, sunnier than the wild-grape cluster, | |
| Gush in golden-tinted plenty down her neck's rose-misted marble: | 5 |
| Then her voice's music ... call it the well's bubbling, the bird's warble! | |
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| And this woman says, 'My days were sunless and my nights were moonless, | |
| Parch'd the pleasant April herbage, and the lark's heart's outbreak tuneless, | |
| If you loved me not!' And I who (ah, for words of flame!) adore her, | |
| Who am mad to lay my spirit prostrate palpably before her— | 10 |
| I may enter at her portal soon, as now her lattice takes me, | |
| And by noontide as by midnight make her mine, as hers she makes me! | |
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