Queen "went on"; but what a moment that heart had
had! . . . Gratitude, we see always, for the gift of love in the heart,
for God's secret. The lover was left alone, but he had known the thrill.
"Better to have loved and lost"--nay, but "lost," for Browning, is not
in the scheme. She is there, in the world, whether his or another's.

Sometimes she has never been his at all, has never cared:

"All June I bound the rose in sheaves.
Now, rose by rose, I strip the leaves
And strew them where Pauline may pass.
She will not turn aside? Alas!
Let them lie. Suppose they die?
The chance was, they might take her eye."

And then, for many a month, he tried to learn the lute to please her.

"To-day I venture all I know.
She will not hear my music? So!
Break the string; fold music's wing:
Suppose Pauline had bade me sing!"

Thus we gradually see that all his life he has been learning to love
her. Now he has resolved to speak. . . . Heaven or hell?

"She will not give me heaven? 'Tis well!
Lose who may--I still can say
Those who win heaven, blest are they!"

Here again is Browning's typical lover. Never does he whine, never
resent: she was free to choose, and she has not chosen _him_. That is
pain; but of the "humiliation" commonly assigned to unsuccessful love,
he never dreams: where can be humiliation in having caught God's
secret? . . . And even if she have half-inclined to him, but found that
not all herself can give herself--more pain in that, a nearer approach
to "failure," perhaps--even so, he understands.

"I said--Then dearest, since 'tis so,
Since now at length my fate I know,
Since nothing all my love avails,
Since all, my life seemed meant for, fails,
Since this was written and needs must be--
My whole heart rises up to bless
Your name in pride and thankfulness!
Take back the hope you gave--I claim
Only a memory of the same
--And this beside, if you will not blame,
Your leave for one more last ride with me."

The girl hesitates. Her proud dark eyes, half-pitiful, dwell on him for
a moment--"with life or death in the balance," thinks he.

". . . Right!
The blood replenished me again;
My last thought was at least not vain;
I and my mistress, side by side
Shall be together, breathe and ride;
So, one day more am I deified.