{
 "id": "elizabeth-barrett-browning/xxvi",
 "title": "XXVI",
 "ordinal": null,
 "subtitle": null,
 "poet": "Elizabeth Barrett Browning",
 "poet_slug": "elizabeth-barrett-browning",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "Sonnets from the Portuguese",
 "book_slug": "sonnets-from-the-portuguese",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": 26,
 "container": null,
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1850,
  "venue": "Sonnets from the Portuguese (1850)",
  "note": "First located printing is this volume; an earlier periodical printing has not been established.",
  "uncertain": false,
  "sources": [
   "https://github.com/standardebooks/elizabeth-barrett-browning_sonnets-from-the-portuguese",
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2002"
  ]
 },
 "source": {
  "kind": "standard-ebooks",
  "repo": "standardebooks/elizabeth-barrett-browning_sonnets-from-the-portuguese",
  "file": "sonnets-from-the-portuguese.xhtml",
  "upstream": [
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2002",
   "https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/100114123"
  ],
  "rights": "public domain (SE dedication; underlying text pre-1931)"
 },
 "verification": {
  "level": "structural-only",
  "last_checked": "2026-08-20"
 },
 "stats": {
  "n_lines": 14,
  "n_stanzas": 1,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 52,
  "max_indent": 0
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "I lived with visions for my company",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Instead of men and women, years ago,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And found them gentle mates, nor thought to know",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A sweeter music than they played to me.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But soon their trailing purple was not free",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of this world’s dust, their lutes did silent grow,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And I myself grew faint and blind below",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Their vanishing eyes. Then thou didst come⁠—to be,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Beloved, what they seemed. Their shining fronts,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Their songs, their splendours⁠—better, yet the same,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As river-water hallowed into fonts⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Met in thee, and from out thee overcame",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "My soul with satisfaction of all wants⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Because God’s gifts put man’s best dreams to shame.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}