... do you know I was once not very far from seeing - really seeing you? You were too unwell - and now it is years ago - and I feel as at some untoward passage in my travels - as if I had been close, so close, to some world's-wonder in chapel or crypt, only a screen to push and I might have entered, but there was some slight... so it now seems... slight and just-sufficient bar to admission; and the half-opened door shut, and I went home my thousands of miles, and the sight of you was never to be!

Well, these Poems were to be - and this true thankful joy and pride with which I feel myself

Yours ever faithfully,
Robert Browning