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Page:Two Poems - Browning and Browning (1854).djvu/10

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8
A PLEA FOR THE

XIX.

Healthy children, with those blue

English eyes, fresh from their Maker,
Fierce and ravenous, staring through
At the brown loaves of the baker.

XX.

I am listening here in Rome,

And the Romans are confessing,
"English children pass in bloom
All the prettiest made for blessing.

XXI.

Angli angeli!" (resumed

From the mediæval story)
"Such rose angelhoods, emplumed
In such ringlets of pure glory!"

XXII.

Can we smooth down the bright hair,

O my sisters, calm, unthrilled in
Our heart's pulses? Can we bear
The sweet looks of our own children,