d flying stars,
Is blank and motionless: how peaceful sleep
The tree-tops all together! Like an asp[6]
The wind slips whispering from bough to bough.

* * *

PARACELSUS. See, morn at length. The heavy darkness seems
Diluted, grey and clear without the stars;
The shrubs bestir and rouse themselves as if
Some snake, that weighed them down all night, let go
His hold; and from the East, fuller and fuller,
Day, like a mighty river, flowing in;
But clouded, wintry, desolate and cold.

That is good, clear, and sufficient; and there the description should
end. But Browning, driven by some small demon, adds to it three lines of
mere observant fancy.

Yet see how that broad prickly star-shaped plant,
Half-down in the crevice, spreads its woolly leaves,
All thick and glistening with diamond dew.

What is that for? To give local colour or reality? It does neither. It
is mere childish artistry. Tennyson could not have done it. He knew when
to stay his hand.[7]

The finest piece of natural description in _Paracelsus_ is of the
coming of Spring. It is full of the joy of life; it is inspired by a
passionate thought, lying behind it, concerning man. It is still more
inspired by his belief that God himself was eternal joy and filled the
universe with rapture. Nowhere did Browning reach a greater height in
his Nature poetry than in these lines, yet they are more a description,
as usual, of animal life than of the beauty of the earth and sea:

Then all is still; earth is a wintry clod:
But spring-wind, like a dancing psaltress, passes
Over its breast to waken it, rare verdure
Buds tenderly upon rough banks, between
The withered tree-roots and the cracks of frost,
Like a smile striving with a wrinkled face;
The grass grows bright, the boughs are swoln with blooms
Like chrysalids impatient for the air,
The shining dorrs are busy, beetles run
Along the furrows, ants make their ado;
Above, birds fly in merry flocks, the lark
Soars up and up, shivering for very joy;
Afar the ocean sleeps; white fishing-gulls
Flit where the strand is purple with its tribe
Of nested limpets; savage creatures seek
Their loves in wood and plain--and God renews
His ancient rapture.

Once more, in _Paracelsus_, there is the lovely lyric about the flowing
of the Mayne. I have driven through that gracious countr