The hurricane is spent,
    And the good boat speeds through the brightening weather;
    But is it earth or sea that heaves below? 
    The gulf rolls like a meadow-swell, o’erstrewn
    With ravaged boughs and remnants of the shore;
    And now, some islet, loosened from the land,
    Swims past with all its trees, sailing to ocean: 
    And now the air is full of uptorn canes.
    Light strippings from the fan-trees, tamarisks
    Unrooted, with their birds still clinging to them,
    All high in the wind.  Even so my varied life
    Drifts by me.

I think that the lines I have italicised should have been left out.  They weaken what he has well done.

* * * * *

CHAPTER IV

BROWNING’S THEORY OF HUMAN LIFE

PAULINE AND PARACELSUS

To isolate Browning’s view of Nature, and to leave it behind us, seemed advisable before speaking of his work as a poet of mankind.  We can now enter freely on that which is most distinctive, most excellent in his work—­his human poetry; and the first thing that meets us and in his very first poems, is his special view of human nature, and of human life, and of the relation of both to God.  It marks his originality that this view was entirely his own.  Ancient thoughts of course are to be found in it, but his combination of them is original amongst the English poets.  It marks his genius that he wrought out this conception while he was yet so young.  It is partly shaped in Pauline; it is fully set forth in Paracelsus.  And it marks his consistency of mind that he never changed it.  I do not think he ever added to it or developed it.  It satisfied him when he was a youth, and when he was an old man.  We have already seen it clearly expressed in the Prologue to Asolando.

That theory needs to be outlined, for till it is understood Browning’s poetry cannot be understood or loved as fully as we should desire to love it.  It exists in Pauline, but all its elements are in solution; uncombined, but waiting the electric flash which will mix them, in due proportions, into a composite substance, having a lucid form, and capable of being used.  That flash was sent through the confused elements of Pauline, and the result was Paracelsus.

I will state the theory first, and then, lightly passing through Pauline and Paracelsus, re-tell it.  It is fitting to apologise for the repetition which this method of treatment will naturally cause; but, considering that the theory underlies every drama and poem that he wrote during sixty years, such repetition does not seem unnecessary.  There are many who do not easily grasp it, or do not grasp it at all, and they may be grateful.  As to those who do understand it, they will be happy in their anger with any explanation of what they know so well.