That is well done—­he has liked what he saw.  But what is it all, he thinks; what do I care about it?  And he ends the verse: 

      Only, my Love’s away! 
    I’d as lief that the blue were grey.

Then take the next verse: 

    Runnels, which rillets swell. 
    Must be dancing down the dell,
      With a foaming head
      On the beryl bed
    Paven smooth as a hermit’s cell.

It is excellent description, but it is only scenery for the real passion in Browning’s mind.

      Each with a tale to tell—­
    Could my Love but attend as well.

By the Fireside illustrates the same point.  No description can be better, more close, more observed, than of the whole walk over the hill; but it is mere scenery for the lovers.  The real passion lies in their hearts.

We have then direct description of Nature; direct description of man sometimes as influenced by Nature; sometimes Nature used as the scenery of human passion; but no intermingling of them both.  Each is for ever distinct.  The only thing that unites them in idea, and in the end, is that both have proceeded from the creative joy of God.

Of course this way of thinking permits of the things of Nature being used to illustrate the doings, thinkings and character of man; and in none of his poems is such illustration better used than in Sordello.  There is a famous passage, in itself a noble description of the opulent generativeness of a warm land like Italy, in which he compares the rich, poetic soul of Sordello to such a land, and the lovely line in it,

    And still more labyrinthine buds the rose,

holds in its symbolism the whole essence of a great artist’s nature.  I quote the passage.  It describes Sordello, and it could not better describe Italy: 

    Sordello foremost in the regal class
    Nature has broadly severed from the mass
    Of men, and framed for pleasure, as she frames
    Some happy lands, that have luxurious names,
    For loose fertility; a footfall there
    Suffices to upturn to the warm air
    Half-germinating spices; mere decay
    Produces richer life; and day by day
    New pollen on the lily-petal grows,
    And still more labyrinthine buds the rose.

That compares to the character of a whole country the character of a whole type of humanity.  I take another of such comparisons, and it is as minute as this is broad, and done with as great skill and charm.  Sordello is full of poetic fancies, touched and glimmering with the dew of youth, and he has woven them around the old castle where he lives.  Browning compares the young man’s imaginative play to the airy and audacious labour of the spider.  He, that is, Sordello,