Towards the end of The Cult of Beauty, the V&A's tremendous survey of the Aesthetic Movement in England (until 17 July), you gradually become aware of low voices issuing from a speaker on the gallery ceiling. 'They are not long, the weeping and the laughter,/Love and desire and hate,' says one; and the other:

But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

LRB 19 May 2011 | PDF Download