Pillowed upon my fair love’s ripening breast, To feel for ever its soft swell and fall Awake forever in a sweet unrest, Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath
Ask yourself my love whether you are not very cruel to have so entrammeled me, so destroyed my freedom… I almost wish we were butterflies and liv’d but three summer days – three such days with you I could fill with more delight than fifty common years could ever contain.
‘I cannot exist without you. I am forgetful of everything but seeing you again… You have absorb’d me. I have a sensation at the present moment as though I was dissolving.’
‘I can bear to die – I cannot bear to leave her… My dear Brown, what am I to do? Where can I look for consolation or ease? If I had any chance of recovery, this passion would kill me.’
I almost wish we were butterflies and liv’d but three summer days – three such days with you I could fill with more delight than fifty common years could ever contain.