I have heard once or twice of late that English poets in the future
will set themselves to express emotions more complex and subtle than
have ever yet been treated in poetry. I shall be extremely glad, of
course, if this happen in my time. But at present I incline to rejoice
rather in an assured inheritance, and, when I hear talk of this kind,
to say over to myself one particular sonnet which for mere subtlety of
thought seems to me unbeaten by anything that I can select from the
poetry of this century:--

Thy bosom is endeared of all hearts
Which I by lacking have supposed dead;
And there reigns Love and all Love's loving parts,
And all those friends which I thought buried.
How many a holy and obsequious Tear
Hath dear religious love stol'n from mine eye,
As interest of the dead, which now appear
But things remov'd that hidden in thee lie!

Thou art the grave where buried love doth live,
Hung with the trophies of my lovers gone,
Who all their parts of me to thee did give;
That due of many now is thine alone!
Their images I lov'd I view in thee,
And thou, all they, hast all the all of me.

FOOTNOTES:

[A] The opening lines of the second stanza of this poem have generally
been printed thus: