Mrs. Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806–1861)

GOD would not let the spheric lights accost

This God-loved man, and bade the earth stand off

With all her beckoning hills, whose golden stuff

Under the feet of the royal sun is crossed.

Yet such things were, to him, not wholly lost,—

Permitted, with his wandering eyes, light-proof,

To have fair visions rendered full enough

By many a ministrant accomplished ghost;

And seeing, to sounds of softly-turned book-leaves,

Sappho’s crown-rose, and Meleager’s spring,

And Gregory’s starlight, on Greek-burnished eves:

Till Sensual and Unsensual seemed one thing

Viewed from one level,—earth’s reapers at the sheaves,

Not plainer than Heaven’s angels marshalling!