Amazon.com description: Product Description: Book may have numerous typos, missing text, images, or index. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1883. Not illustrated. Excerpt: ... But he was safe for that time, and I, too: The argent angels in the altar-flare Absorbed his soul next moment. The good man! In England we were scarce acquaintances, That here in Florence he should keep my thought Beyond the image on his eye, which came And went: and yet his thought disturbed my life; For after that I oftener sat at home On evenings, watching how they fined themselves With gradual conscience to a perfect night, Until the moon, diminished to a curve, Lay out there like a sickle for His hand Who cometh down at last to reap the earth. At such times ended seemed my trade of verse: I feared to jingle bells upon my robe Before the four-faced silent cherubim. With God so near me, could I sing of God? I did not write, nor read, nor even think, But sate absorbed amid the quickening glooms, Most like some passive broken lump of salt Dropt in by chance to a bowl of cenomel, To spoil the drink a little, and lose itself, Dissolving slowly, slowly, until lost. EIGHTH BOOK. One eve it happened, when I sate alone, Alone, upon the terrace of my tower, A book upon my knees to counterfeit The reading that I never read at all, While Marian, in the garden down below, Knelt by the fountain I could just hear thrill The drowsy silence of the exhausted day, And peeled a new fig from that purple heap In the grass beside her, turning out the red To feed her eager child, who sucked at it With vehement lips across a gap of air, As he stood opposite, face and curls aflame With that last sun-ray, crying, "Give me, give!" And stamping with imperious baby-feet, (We're all born princes) something startled me, -- The laugh of sad and innocent souls that breaks Abruptly, as if frightened at itself. 'Twas Marian laughed. I saw her glance above In sudden shame that I should hear her lau...