White Witchcraft
When a boy Browning had a humble friend in the person of a toad. "He visited it daily where it burrowed under a white rosetree, announcing himself by a pinch of gravel dropped into its hole; and the creature would crawl forth, allow its head to be gently tickled, and reward the act with a loving glance of its soft full eyes." Mrs. Orr.
If you and I could change to beasts, what beast should either be?
Shall you and I play Jove for once? Turn fox then, I decree!
Shy wild sweet stealer of the grapes! Now do your worst on me!
And thus you think to spite your friend—turned loathsome? What, a toad?
So, all men shrink and shun me! Dear men, pursue your road!
Leave but my crevice in the stone, a reptile's fit abode!
Now say your worst, Canidia! "He 's loathsome, I allow:
There may or may not lurk a pearl beneath his puckered brow:
But see his eyes that follow mine—love lasts there, anyhow."