Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Books, books, books!
I had found the secret of a garret room
Piled high with cases in read more

Books, books, books!
I had found the secret of a garret room
Piled high with cases in my father's name;
Piled high, packed large,--where, creeping in and out
Among the giant fossils of my past,
Like some small nimble mouse between the ribs
Of a mastodon, I nibbled here and there
At this or that box, pulling through the gap,
In heats of terror, haste, victorious joy,
The first book first. And how I felt it beat
Under my pillow, in the morning's dark,
An hour before the sun would let me read!
My books!
At last, because the time was ripe,
I chanced upon the poets.

And lilies are still lilies, pulled
By smutty hands, though spotted from their white.

And lilies are still lilies, pulled
By smutty hands, though spotted from their white.

Girls blush, sometimes, because they are alive,
Half wishing they were dead to save the shame.
The read more

Girls blush, sometimes, because they are alive,
Half wishing they were dead to save the shame.
The sudden blush devours them, neck and brow;
They have drawn too near the fire of life, like gnats,
And flare up bodily, wings and all.

And that dismal cry rose slowly
And sank slowly through the air,
Full of spirit's melancholy
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And that dismal cry rose slowly
And sank slowly through the air,
Full of spirit's melancholy
And eternity's despair!
And they heart the words it said--
Pan is dead! great Pan is dead!
Pan, Pan is dead!

In this bad, twisted, topsy-turvy world,
Where all the heaviest wrongs get uppermost.

In this bad, twisted, topsy-turvy world,
Where all the heaviest wrongs get uppermost.