horizon's verge;
That is the land, to seek
If we tire or dread the surge:

--
St. 17. We can return from the sea of passion and thought,
that is, poetry, or a deep spiritual state, to the solid
land again, of material fact.

18.

Land the solid and safe--
To welcome again (confess!)
When, high and dry, we chafe
The body, and don the dress.

--
St. 18. Man, in his earth life, cannot always be "high
contemplative", and indulge in "brave translunary things";
he must welcome again, it must be confessed, "land the solid
and safe". "Other heights in other lives, God willing"
(`One Word More').

19.

Does she look, pity, wonder
At one who mimics flight,
Swims--heaven above, sea under,
Yet always earth in sight?

--
St. 19. does she: the "certain soul" in 9th St., "which
early slipped its sheath".

James Lee's Wife.

I. James Lee's Wife speaks at the Window.

--
* In the original ed., 1864, the heading to this section
was `At the Window'; changed in ed. of 1868.
--

1.

Ah, Love, but a day,
And the world has changed!
The sun's away,
And the bird estranged;
The wind has dropped,
And the sky's deranged:
Summer has stopped.

--
St. 1. Ah, Love, but a day: Rev. H. J. Bulkeley, in his paper on
`James Lee's Wife' (`Browning Soc. Papers', iv., p. 457), explains,
"One day's absence from him has caused the world to change."
It's better to understand that something has occurred
to cause the world to change in a single day; that James Lee has made
some new revelation of himself, which causes the wife's heart
to have misgivings, and with these misgivings comes the eager desire
expressed in St. 3, to show her love, when he returns,
more strongly than ever.

2.

Look in my eyes!
Wilt thou change too?
Should I fear surprise?
Shall I find aught new
In the old and dear,
In the good and true,
With the changing year?

3.

Thou art a man,
But I am thy love.
For the lake, its swan;
For the dell, its dove;
And for thee--(oh, haste!)
Me, to bend above,
Me, to hold embraced.

II. By the Fireside.

1.

Is all our fire of shipwreck wood,
Oak and pi