e of art,
carefully conceived, upbuilded stone by stone, touch by touch, each
separate thought with its own emotion, each adding something to the
whole, each pushing Browning's emotion and picture into our souls, till
the whole impression is received. It is full, and full to the brim, with
the long experience of peaceful joy in married love. And the subtlety of
the close of it, and of Browning's play with his own fancy about the
moon, do not detract from the tenderness of it; for it speaks not of
transient passion but of the love of a whole life lived from end to end
in music.

The last of these is entitled _Prospice_. When he wrote it he had lost
his wife. It tells what she had made of him; it reveals alike his
steadfast sadness that she had gone from him and the steadfast
resolution, due to her sweet and enduring power, with which, after her
death, he promised, bearing with him his sorrow and his memory of joy,
to stand and withstand in the battle of life, ever a fighter to the
close--and well he kept his word. It ends with the expression of his
triumphant certainty of meeting her, and breaks forth at last into so
great a cry of pure passion that ear and heart alike rejoice. Browning
at his best, Browning in the central fire of his character, is in it.

Fear death?--to feel the fog in my throat,
The mist in my face,
When the snows begin, and the blasts denote
I am nearing the place,
The power of the night, the press of the storm,
The post of the foe;
Where he stands, the Arch Fear in a visible form,
Yet the strong man must go:
For the journey is done and the summit attained
And the barriers fall,
Though a battle's to fight ere the guerdon be gained,
The reward of it all.
I was ever a fighter, so--one fight more,
The best and the last!
I would hate that Death bandaged my eyes, and forbore,
And bade me creep past.
No! let me taste the whole of it, fare like my peers
The heroes of old,
Bear the brunt, in a minute pay glad life's arrears
Of pain, darkness and cold.
For sudden the worst turns the best to the brave,
The black minute's at end,
And the elements' rage, the fiend-voices that rave,
Shall dwindle, shall blend,
Shall change, shall become first a peace out of pain,
Then a light, then thy breast,
O thou soul of my soul! I shall clasp thee again,
And with God be the r