ven for a brief hour into the rapture of Nature. That rapture, in
Browning's thought, was derived from the creative thought of God
exercising itself with delight in the incessant making of Nature. And
its manifestation was life, that joyful rush of life in all things into
fuller and fuller being. No poet felt this ecstasy of mere living in
Nature more deeply than Browning. His own rapture (the word is not too
strong) in it appears again and again in his poetry, and when it does,
Browning is not a man sympathising from without with Nature. He is then
a part of Nature herself, a living piece of the great organism, having
his own rejoicing life in the mightier life which includes him; and
feeling, with the rest, the abounding pleasure of continuous life
reaching upwards through growth to higher forms of being, swifter powers
of living. I might give many examples, but one will suffice, and it is
the more important because it belongs not to his ardent youth, but to
his mature manhood. It is part of the song of Thamyris in _Aristophanes'
Apology_. Thamyris, going to meet the Muses in rivalry, sings as he
walks in the splendid morning the song of the rapture of the life of
Earth, and is himself part of the rejoicing movement.

Thamuris, marching, laughed "Each flake of foam"
(As sparklingly the ripple raced him by)
"Mocks slower clouds adrift in the blue dome!"

For Autumn was the season; red the sky
Held morn's conclusive signet of the sun
To break the mists up, bid them blaze and die.

Morn had the mastery as, one by one
All pomps produced themselves along the tract
From earth's far ending to near heaven begun.

Was there a ravaged tree? it laughed compact
With gold, a leaf-ball crisp, high brandished now,
Tempting to onset frost which late attacked.

Was there a wizened shrub, a starveling bough,
A fleecy thistle filched from by the wind,
A weed, Pan's trampling hoof would disallow?

Each, with a glory and a rapture twined
About it, joined the rush of air and light
And force: the world was of one joyous mind.

Say not the birds flew! they forebore their right--
Swam, revelling onward in the roll of things.
Say not the beasts' mirth bounded! that was flight--

How could the creatures leap, no lift of wings?
Such earth's community of purpose, such
The ease of earth's fulfilled imaginings,--

So did the near and fa