Explore "Parleyings with Certain People of Importance in their Day" by Robert Browning on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
I
It seems as if... or did the actual chance / Startle me and perplex? Let truth be said! / How might this happen? Dreaming, blindfold led / By visionary hand, did soul's advance / Precede my body's, gain inheritance / Of fact by fancy -- so that when I read / At length with waking eyes your Song, instead / Of mere bewilderment, with me first glance / Was but full recognition that in trance / Or merely thought's adventure some old day / Of dim and done-with boyishness, or -- well, / Why might it not have been, the miracle / Broke on me as I took my sober way / Through veritable regions of our earth / And made discovery, many a wondrous one?