y of low hill
and dale and wide water-meadows, where under flowered banks only a foot
high the slow river winds in gentleness; and this poem is steeped in the
sentiment of the scenery. But, as before, Browning quickly slides away
from the beauty of inanimate nature into a record of the animals that
haunt the stream. He could not get on long with mountains and rivers
alone. He must people them with breathing, feeling things; anything for
life!

Thus the Mayne glideth
Where my Love abideth.
Sleep's no softer; it proceeds
On through lawns, on through meads,
On and on, whate'er befall,
Meandering and musical,
Though the niggard pasturage
Bears not on its shaven ledge
Aught but weeds and waving grasses
To view the river as it passes,
Save here and there a scanty patch
Of primroses too faint to catch
A weary bee.
And scarce it pushes
Its gentle way through strangling rushes
Where the glossy kingfisher
Flutters when noon-heats are near,
Glad the shelving banks to shun
Red and steaming in the sun,
Where the shrew-mouse with pale throat
Burrows, and the speckled stoat;
Where the quick sandpipers flit
In and out the marl and grit
That seems to breed them, brown as they:
Naught disturbs its quiet way,
Save some lazy stork that springs,
Trailing it with legs and wings,
Whom the shy fox from the hill
Rouses, creep he ne'er so still.

"My heart, they loose my heart, those simple words," cries Paracelsus,
and he was right. They tell of that which to see and love is better,
wiser, than to probe and know all the problems of knowledge. But that is
a truth not understood, not believed. And few there be who find it. And
if Browning had found the secret of how to live more outside of his
understanding than he did, or having found it, had not forgotten it, he
would not perhaps have spoken more wisely for the good of man, but he
would have more continuously written better poetry.

The next poem in which he may be said to touch Nature is _Sordello_.
_Strafford_ does not count, save for the charming song of the boat in
music and moonlight, which the children sing. In _Sordello_, the problem
of life, as in _Paracelsus_, is still the chief matter, but outward
life, as not in _Paracelsus_, takes an equal place with inward life. And
naturally, Nature, its changes and beauty, being outward, are more fully
t