Robert Browning
I WILL be happy if but for once:
   Only help me, Autumn weather,
Me and my cares to screen, ensconce
   In luxury’s sofa-lap of leather!
Sleep? Nay, comfort—with just a cloud
   Suffusing day too clear and bright:
Eve’s essence, the single drop allowed
   To sully, like milk, Noon’s water-white.
 
Let gauziness shade, not shroud,—adjust,
   Dim and not deaden,—somehow sheathe
Aught sharp in the rough world’s busy thrust,
   If it reach me through dreaming’s vapor-wreath.
 
Be life so, all things ever the same!
   For, what has disarmed the world? Outside,
Quiet and peace: inside, nor blame
   Nor want, nor wish whate’er betide.
 
What is it like that has happened before?
   A dream? No dream, more real by much.
A vision? But fanciful days of yore
   Brought many: mere musing seems not such.
Perhaps but a memory, after all!
  —Of what came once when a woman leant
To feel for my brow where her kiss might fall.
   Truth ever, truth only the excellent!
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