The Lost Mistress

Read 'The Lost Mistress' by 'Robert Browning' and provide your summary and literary analysis in the comments section below.

The Lost Mistress by Robert Browning

 All's over, then: does truth sound bitter
As one at first believes?
Hark, 'tis the sparrows' good-night twitter
About your cottage eaves!

And the leaf-buds on the vine are woolly,
I noticed that today;
One day more bursts them open fully
—You know the red turns grey.

Tomorrow we meet the same then, dearest?
May I take your hand in mine?
Mere friends are we,—well, friends the merest
Keep much that I resign:

For each glance of that eye so bright and black,
Though I keep with heart's endeavour,— 
Your voice, when you wish the snowdrops back,
Though it stay in my soul for ever!— 

—Yet I will but say what mere friends say,
Or only a thought stronger;
I will hold your hand but as long as all may,
Or so very little longer!

Form: Ballad Comments

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