“O lyric Love, half angel and half bird
      And all a wonder and a wild desire,—­
      Boldest of hearts that ever braved the sun,
      Took sanctuary within the holier blue,
      And sang a kindred soul out to his face,—­
      Yet human at the red-ripe of the heart—­
      When the first summons from the darkling earth
      Reached thee amid thy chambers, blanched their blue,
      And bared them of the glory—­to drop down,
      To toil for man, to suffer or to die,—­
      This is the same voice:  can thy soul know change? 
      Hail then, and hearken from the realms of help! 
      Never may I commence my song, my due
      To God who best taught song by gift of thee,
      Except, with bent head and beseeching hand—­
      That still, despite the distance and the dark,
      What was, again may be; some interchange
      Of grace, some splendour once thy very thought,
      Some benediction anciently thy smile: 
      —­Never conclude, but raising hand and head
      Thither where eyes, that cannot reach, yet yearn
      For all hope, all sustainment, all reward,
      Their utmost up and on,—­so blessing back
      In those thy realms of help, that heaven thy home,
      Some whiteness which, I judge, thy face makes proud,
      Some wanness where, I think, thy foot may fall!”
             * * * * *

Thereafter, for close upon five thousand words, the poem descends again to the level of a versified tale.  It is saved from ruin by subtlety of intellect, striking dramatic verisimilitude, an extraordinary vigour, and occasional lines of real poetry.  Retrospectively, apart from the interest, often strained to the utmost, most readers, I fancy, will recall with lingering pleasure only the opening of “The Other Half Rome,” the description of Pompilia, “with the patient brow and lamentable smile,” with flower-like body, in white hospital array—­a child with eyes of infinite pathos, “whether a flower or weed, ruined:  who did it shall account to Christ.”

In these three introductory books we have the view of the matter taken by those who side with Count Guido, of those who are all for Pompilia, and of the “superior person,” impartial because superciliously indifferent, though sufficiently interested to “opine.”

In the ensuing three books a much higher poetic level is reached.  In the first, Guido speaks; in the second, Caponsacchi; the third, that lustrous opal set midway in the “Ring,” is Pompilia’s narrative.  Here the three protagonists live and move before our eyes.  The sixth book may be said to be the heart of the whole poem.  The extreme intellectual subtlety of Guido’s plea stands quite unrivalled in poetic literature.  In comparing it, for its poetic beauty, with other sections, the reader must bear in mind that in a poem of a dramatic nature the dramatic proprieties must be dominant.  It would be obviously inappropriate to make Count Guido Franceschini speak with the dignity of the Pope, with the exquisite pathos of Pompilia, with the ardour, like suppressed molten lava, of Caponsacchi.  The self-defence of the latter is a superb piece of dramatic writing.  Once or twice the flaming volcano of his heart bursts upward uncontrollably, as when he cries—­