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Autumn Landscape with a River.

“Echo

Come to me in the silence of the night;
Come in the speaking silence of a dream;
Come with soft rounded cheeks and eyes as bright
As sunlight on a stream;
Come back in tears,
O memory, hope and love of finished years.

O dream how sweet, too sweet, too bitter-sweet,
Whose wakening should have been in Paradise,
Where souls brim-full of love abide and meet;
Where thirsting longing eyes
Watch the slow door
That opening, letting in, lets out no more.

Yet come to me in dreams, that I may live
My very life again though cold in death;
Come back to me in dreams, that I may give
Pulse for pulse, breath for breath:
Speak low, lean low,
As long ago, my love, how long ago.”

—Christina Rossetti

I don't pay any attention to the words in Italian opera, either.

Lack of self awareness IS THE BRAND.

I enjoyed reading this, as i would anyone (so rare these days) willing to give that era serious consideration; however, being one who has read deeply of its poetry as well as its prose, i'm baffled that you don't mention one who is clearly (in hindsight) the preeminent Victorian poet: Christina Rossetti.