Explore "Cristina" by Robert Browning on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
She should never have looked at me / If she meant I should not love her! / There are plenty... men, you call such, / I suppose... she may discover / All her soul to, if she pleases, / And yet leave much as she found them: / But I'm not so, and she knew it / When she fixed me, glancing round them.
What? To fix me thus meant nothing? / But I can't tell (there's my weakness) / What her look said! -- no vile cant, sure, / About "need to strew the bleakness / Of some lone shore with its pearl-seed, / That the sea feels" -- no "strange yearning / That such souls have, most to lavish / Where there's chance of least returning."