satisfy Balaustion. The dramatic
situation is unfinished. Balaustion, with her fine instinct, feels that,
to save the subject, it ought to be otherwise treated, and she invents a
new Admetos, a new Alkestis. She has heard that Sophocles meant to make
a new piece of the same matter, and her balanced judgment, on which
Browning insists so often, makes her say, "That is well. One thing has
many sides; but still, no good supplants a good, no beauty undoes
another; still I will love the _Alkestis_ which I know. Yet I have so
drunk this poem, so satisfied with it my heart and soul, that I feel as
if I, too, might make a new poem on the same matter."

Ah, that brave
Bounty of poets, the one royal race
That ever was, or will be, in this world!
They give no gift that bounds itself and ends
I' the giving and the taking: theirs so breeds
I' the heart and soul o' the taker, so transmutes
The man who only was a man before,
That he grows godlike in his turn, can give--
He also: share the poet's privilege,
Bring forth new good, new beauty, from the old.

And she gives her conception of the subject, and it further unfolds her
character.

When Apollo served Admetos, the noble nature of the God so entered into
him that all the beast was subdued in the man, and he became the ideal
king, living for the ennoblement of his people. Yet, while doing this
great work, he is to die, still young, and he breaks out, in a bitter
calm, against the fate which takes him from the work of his life.

"Not so," answers Alkestis, "I knew what was coming, and though Apollo
urged me not to disturb the course of things, and not to think that any
death prevents the march of good or ends a life, yet he yielded; and I
die for you--all happiness."

"It shall never be," replies Admetos; "our two lives are one. But I am
the body, thou art the soul; and the body shall go, and not the soul. I
claim death."

"No," answered Alkestis; "the active power to rule and weld the people
into good is in the man. Thou art the acknowledged power. And as to the
power which, thou sayest, I give thee, as to the soul of me--take it, I
pour it into thee. Look at me." And as he looks, she dies, and the king
is left--still twofold as before, with the soul of Alkestis in
him--himself and her. So is Fate cheated, and Alkestis in Admetos is not
dead. A passage follows of delicate and simple poetry, written by
Browning in a manne