“Such life here, through such length of hours,
        Such miracles performed in play,
      Such primal naked forms of flowers,
        Such letting nature have her way.” ...

Let us too be unashamed of soul, the poet-lover says, even as earth lies bare to heaven.  Nothing is to be overlooked.  But all in vain:  in vain “I drink my fill at your soul’s springs.”

     “Just when I seemed about to learn! 
        Where is the thread now? off again! 
      The old trick!  Only I discern—­
        Infinite passion, and the pain
      Of finite hearts that yearn.”

It was during this visit to Rome that both were gratified by the proposal in the leading English literary weekly, that the Poet-Laureateship, vacant by the death of Wordsworth, should be conferred upon Mrs. Browning:  though both rejoiced when they learned that the honour had devolved upon one whom each so ardently admired as Alfred Tennyson.  In 1851 a visit was paid to England, not one very much looked forward to by Mrs. Browning, who had never had cause to yearn for her old home in Wimpole Street, and who could anticipate no reconciliation with her father, who had persistently refused even to open her letters to him, and had forbidden the mention of her name in his home circle.

Bayard Taylor, in his travel-sketches published under the title “At Home and Abroad,” has put on record how he called upon the Brownings one afternoon in September, at their rooms in Devonshire Street, and found them on the eve of their return to Italy.

In his cheerful alertness, self-possession, and genial suavity Browning impressed him as an American rather than as an Englishman, though there can be no question but that no more thorough Englishman than the poet ever lived.  It is a mistake, of course, to speak of him as a typical Englishman:  for typical he was not, except in a very exclusive sense.  Bayard Taylor describes him in reportorial fashion as being apparently about seven-and-thirty (a fairly close guess), with his dark hair already streaked with grey about the temples:  with a fair complexion, just tinged with faintest olive:  eyes large, clear, and grey, and nose strong and well-cut, mouth full and rather broad, and chin pointed, though not prominent:  about the medium height, strong in the shoulders, but slender at the waist, with movements expressive of a combination of vigour and elasticity.  With due allowance for the passage of five-and-thirty years, this description would not be inaccurate of Browning the septuagenarian.

They did not return direct to Italy after all, but wintered in Paris with Robert Browning the elder, who had retired to a small house in a street leading off the Champs Elysees.  The pension he drew from the Bank of England was a small one, but, with what he otherwise had, was sufficient for him to live in comfort.  The old gentleman’s health was superb to the last, for he died in 1866 without ever having known a day’s illness.