ith pomp and paean glorious."

It is, however, too long for present quotation, and as an example of
Browning's early lyrics I select rather the rich and delicate second of
these "Paracelsus" songs, one wherein the influence of Keats is so
marked, and yet where all is the poet's own:--

"Heap cassia, sandal-buds and stripes
Of labdanum, and aloe-balls,
Smeared with dull nard an Indian wipes
From out her hair: such balsam falls
Down sea-side mountain pedestals,
From tree-tops where tired winds are fain,
Spent with the vast and howling main,
To treasure half their island-gain.

"And strew faint sweetness from some old
Egyptian's fine worm-eaten shroud
Which breaks to dust when once unrolled;
Or shredded perfume, like a cloud
From closet long to quiet vowed,
With mothed and dropping arras hung,
Mouldering her lute and books among,
As when a queen, long dead, was young."

With this music in our ears we can well forgive some of the prosaic
commonplaces which deface "Paracelsus"--some of those lapses from
rhythmic energy to which the poet became less and less sensitive, till
he could be so deaf to the vanishing "echo of the fleeting strand" as to
sink to the level of doggerel such as that which closes the poem called
"Popularity."

"Paracelsus" is not a great, but it is a memorable poem: a notable
achievement, indeed, for an author of Browning's years. Well may we
exclaim with Festus, when we regard the poet in all the greatness of his
maturity--

"The sunrise
Well warranted our faith in this full noon!"

CHAPTER IV.

The _Athenaeum_ dismissed "Paracelsus" with a half contemptuous line or
two. On the other hand, the _Examiner_ acknowledged it to be a work of
unequivocal power, and predicted for its author a brilliant career. The
same critic who wrote this review contributed an article of about twenty
pages upon "Paracelsus" to the _New Monthly Magazine_, under the
heading, "Evidences of a New Dramatic Poetry." This article is ably
written, and remarkable for its sympathetic insight. "Mr. Browning," the
critic writes, "is a man of genius, he has in himself all the elements
of a great poet, philosophical as well as dramatic."

The author of this enthusiastic and important critique was John Forster.
When the _Examiner_ review appeared the two young men had no