* * *

PARACELSUS.  See, morn at length.  The heavy darkness seems
Diluted, grey and clear without the stars;
The shrubs bestir and rouse themselves as if
Some snake, that weighed them down all night, let go
His hold; and from the East, fuller and fuller,
Day, like a mighty river, flowing in;
But clouded, wintry, desolate and cold.

That is good, clear, and sufficient; and there the description should end.  But Browning, driven by some small demon, adds to it three lines of mere observant fancy.

    Yet see how that broad prickly star-shaped plant,
    Half-down in the crevice, spreads its woolly leaves,
    All thick and glistening with diamond dew.

What is that for?  To give local colour or reality?  It does neither.  It is mere childish artistry.  Tennyson could not have done it.  He knew when to stay his hand.[7]

The finest piece of natural description in Paracelsus is of the coming of Spring.  It is full of the joy of life; it is inspired by a passionate thought, lying behind it, concerning man.  It is still more inspired by his belief that God himself was eternal joy and filled the universe with rapture.  Nowhere did Browning reach a greater height in his Nature poetry than in these lines, yet they are more a description, as usual, of animal life than of the beauty of the earth and sea: 

    Then all is still; earth is a wintry clod: 
    But spring-wind, like a dancing psaltress, passes
    Over its breast to waken it, rare verdure
    Buds tenderly upon rough banks, between
    The withered tree-roots and the cracks of frost,
    Like a smile striving with a wrinkled face;
    The grass grows bright, the boughs are swoln with blooms
    Like chrysalids impatient for the air,
    The shining dorrs are busy, beetles run
    Along the furrows, ants make their ado;
    Above, birds fly in merry flocks, the lark
    Soars up and up, shivering for very joy;
    Afar the ocean sleeps; white fishing-gulls
    Flit where the strand is purple with its tribe
    Of nested limpets; savage creatures seek
    Their loves in wood and plain—­and God renews
    His ancient rapture.

Once more, in Paracelsus, there is the lovely lyric about the flowing of the Mayne.  I have driven through that gracious country of low hill and dale and wide water-meadows, where under flowered banks only a foot high the slow river winds in gentleness; and this poem is steeped in the sentiment of the scenery.  But, as before, Browning quickly slides away from the beauty of inanimate nature into a record of the animals that haunt the stream.  He could not get on long with mountains and rivers alone.  He must people them with breathing, feeling things; anything for life!