in one of the enchanting evenings of
May; where, at the open window by which he sat, there floated in the
melody of two nightingales, one in a laburnum, "heavy with its weight of
gold," and the other in a copper-beech, at the opposite side of the
garden. Such an hour mirrors itself unconsciously in a poet's memory, and
affords, in future years, "such stuff as dreams are made of."

Byron, who, as Mazzini says, "led the genius of Britain on a pilgrimage
throughout all Europe," stamped an impress upon the youthful Browning that
may be traced throughout his entire life. There was something in the
genius of Byron that acted as an enormous force on the nature in response
to it, that transformed nebulous and floating ideals and imaginings into
hope and resolution, that burned away barriers and revealed truth. By its
very nature influence is determined as much by the receiver as by the
inspirer, and if a light is applied to a torch, the torch, too, must be
prepared to ignite, or there will be no blaze.

"A deft musician does the breeze become
Whenever an Aeolian harp it finds;
Hornpipe and hurdygurdy both are dumb
Unto the most musicianly of winds."

The fire of Byron, the spirituality of Shelley, illuminated that world of
drift and dream in which Robert Browning dwelt; and while Shelley, with
his finer spirit, his glorious, impassioned imagination,

"A creature of impetuous breath,"

incited poetic ardors and unmeasured rapture of vision, Byron penetrated
his soul with a certain effective energy that awakened in him creative
power. The spell of Shelley's poetry acted upon Browning as a vision
revealed of beauty and radiance. For Shelley himself, who, as Tennyson
said, "did yet give the world another heart and new pulses," Browning's
feeling was even more intense.

In the analysis of Shelley's poetic nature Browning offers the critical
reader a key to his own. He asserts that it is the presence of the highest
faculty, even though less developed, that gives rank to nature, rather
than a lower faculty more developed. Although it was in later years that
the impression Shelley made upon his boyhood found adequate expression in
his noted essay, the spell reflected itself in "Pauline," and is to be
distinctly traced in many of his poems throughout his entire life. He was
aware from the first of that peculiarly kindling quality in Shelley, the
flash of life in his work:

"He spurreth men, he quickeneth