si posa—­in the “Purgatorio"), both these are the most shadowy of prototypes.  The Sordello of Browning is a typical poetic soul:  the narrative of the incidents in the development of this soul is adapted to the historical setting furnished by the aforesaid Chronicles.  Sordello is a far more profound study than Aprile in “Paracelsus,” in whom, however, he is obviously foreshadowed.  The radical flaw in his nature is that indicated by Goethe of Heine, that “he had no heart.”  The poem is the narrative of his transcendent aspirations, and more or less futile accomplishment.

It would be vain to attempt here any adequate excerption of lines of singular beauty.  Readers familiar with the poem will recall passage after passage—­among which there is probably none more widely known than the grandiose sunset lines:—­

                “That autumn eve was stilled: 
      A last remains of sunset dimly burned
      O’er the far forests,—­like a torch-flame turned
      By the wind back upon its bearer’s hand
      In one long flare of crimson; as a brand,
      The woods beneath lay black.” ...

What haunting lines there are, every here and there—­such as those of Palma, with her golden hair like spilt sunbeams, or those on Elys, with her

                          “Few fine locks
      Coloured like honey oozed from topmost rocks
      Sun-blanched the livelong summer,” ...

or these,

“Day by day
New pollen on the lily-petal grows,
And still more labyrinthine buds the rose——­”

or, once more,

“A touch divine—­
And the sealed eyeball owns the mystic rod;
Visibly through his garden walketh God——­”

But, though sorely tempted, I must not quote further, save only the concluding lines of the unparalleled and impassioned address to Dante:—­

                 “Dante, pacer of the shore

Where glutted hell disgorgeth filthiest gloom,
Unbitten by its whirring sulphur-spume,
Or whence the grieved and obscure waters slope
Into a darkness quieted by hope;
Plucker of amaranths grown beneath God’s eye
In gracious twilights where his chosen lie——­”

              * * * * *

It is a fair land, for those who have lingered in its byways:  but, alas, a troubled tide of strange metres, of desperate rhythms, of wild conjunctions, of panic-stricken collocations, oftentimes overwhelms it.  “Sordello” grew under the poet’s fashioning till, like the magic vapour of the Arabian wizard, it passed beyond his control, “voluminously vast.”