No, for beyond, far, far is a Purity all-unobstructed!
Zeus was Zeus--not Man: wrecked by his weakness I whirl.
Out of the wreck I rise--past Zeus to the Potency o'er him!
I--to have hailed him my friend! I--to have clasped her--my love!
Pallid birth of my pain,--where light, where light is, aspiring
Thither I rise, whilst thou--Zeus, keep the godship and sink!"

While _Ixion_ is the noblest and most heroically passionate of these
poems, _Adam, Lilith, and Eve_, is the most pregnant and suggestive.
Browning has rarely excelled it in certain qualities, hardly found in
any other poet, of pungency, novelty, and penetrating bitter-sweetness.

"ADAM, LILITH, AND EVE.

One day it thundered and lightened.
Two women, fairly frightened,
Sank to their knees, transformed, transfixed,
At the feet of the man who sat betwixt;
And 'Mercy!' cried each, 'If I tell the truth
Of a passage in my youth!'

Said This: 'Do you mind the morning
I met your love with scorning?
As the worst of the venom left my lips,
I thought, "If, despite this lie, he strips
The mask from my soul with a kiss--I crawl,
His slave,--soul, body and all!"'

Said That: 'We stood to be married;
The priest, or someone, tarried;
"If Paradise-door prove locked?" smiled you.
I thought, as I nodded, smiling too,
"Did one, that's away, arrive--nor late
Nor soon should unlock Hell's gate!"'

It ceased to lighten and thunder.
Up started both in wonder,
Looked round, and saw that the sky was clear,
Then laughed, 'Confess you believed us, Dear!'
'I saw through the joke!' the man replied
They seated themselves beside."

Much of the same power is shown in _Cristina and Monaldeschi_,[58] a
dramatic monologue with all the old vigour of Browning's early work of
that kind; not only keen and subtle, but charged with a sharp electrical
quality, which from time to time darts out with a sudden and unexpected
shock. The style and tone are infused with a peculiar fierce irony. The
metre is rapid and stinging, like the words of the vindictive queen as
she hurries her treacherous victim into the hands of the assassins.
There is dramatic invention in the very cadence:

"Ah, but how each loved each, Marquis!
Here's the gallery they trod
Both together, he her god,