can pluck us from that shameful cross.
God, set our feet low and our foreheads high,
And teach us how a man was made to walk!"

Or this:--

"I've waked and slept through many nights and days
Since then--but still that day will catch my breath
Like a nightmare. There are fatal days, indeed,
In which the fibrous years have taken root
So deeply, that they quiver to their tops
Whene'er you stir the dust of such a day."

Again:--

"Passion is
But something suffered after all--
. . . . . While Art

Sets action on the top of suffering."

And this:--

"Nothing is small!
No lily-muffled hum of summer-bee
But finds some coupling with the spinning stars;
No pebble at your foot but proves a sphere:
. . . . . Earth's crammed with Heaven,
And every common bush afire with God;
But only he who sees, takes off his shoes."

Among Mrs. Browning's smaller poems, 'Crowned and Buried' is,
notwithstanding serious defects of technique, one of the most virile
things she has written; indeed, some of her finest lines are to be found
in it. In 'The Cry of the Children' and in 'Cowper's Grave' the pathos
is most true and deep. 'Lord Walter's Wife' is an even more courageous
vindication of the feminine essence than 'Aurora Leigh'; and her 'Vision
of Poets' is said to "vie in beauty with Tennyson's own." The fine
thought and haunting beauty of 'A Musical Instrument,' with its
matchless climax, need not be dwelt on.

During her fifteen years' residence in Florence she threw herself with
great enthusiasm into Italian affairs, and wrote some political poems of
varying merit, whose interest necessarily faded away when the occasion
passed. But among those poems inspired by the struggle for freedom,
'Casa Guidi Windows' comes close to the 'Sonnets from the Portuguese'
and 'Aurora Leigh,' and holds an enduring place for its high poetry, its
musical, sonorous verse, and the sustained intellectual vigor of
composition. Her volume of 'Last Poems' contains, among much inferior
matter, some of her finest and most touching work, as 'A Musical
Instrument,' 'The Forced Recruit,' and 'Mother and Poet,' Peter Bayne
says of her in his 'Great Englishwomen':--"In melodiousness and splendor
of poetic gift Mrs. Browning stands ... first among women. She may not
have the knowledge of life, the insight into character, the
comprehensiveness of some, but we must all