Page:Elizabeth Barrett Browning (Ingram, 5th ed.).djvu/26

Ah, my gossip! you were older,
 And more learned, and a man!—
Yet that shadow,—the enfolder
 Of your quiet eyelids—ran
Both our spirits to one level;
 And I turned from hill and lea
And tho summer-sun's green revel—
 To your eyes that could not see!"

Elizabeth Barrett never forgot the advantages she had derived from the patient kindness and profound learning of the blind scholar, nor did he forego friendly correspondence with his apt and able pupil in after years. She deferred often to his opinion, despite her intense independence, and allowed his somewhat eccentric course of reading to influence her own studies. In later life she addressed three sonnets to this

⁠Steadfast friend,
Who never didst my heart or life misknow,

on "His Blindness," "His Death, 1848," and his "Legacies" to her, which last consisted of his

⁠Æschylus,
And Gregory Nazianzen, and a clock
Chiming the gradual hours out like a flock
Of stars, whose motion is melodious.

"The books," she says, "were those I used to read from," thus

Assisting my dear teacher's soul to unlock
The darkness of his eyes: now mine they mock,
Blinded in turn, by tears: now murmurous
Sad echoes of my young voice, years agone,
Entoning from these leaves, the Grecian phrase,
Return and choke my utterance.

"All this time," says Elizabeth, "we lived at Hope End, a few miles from Malvern, in a retirement scarcely