ught or a fact quite
plain, frequently stated it without any of its modifications, trusting
to his readers not to mistake him; knowing indeed, that if they cared to
find the other side--in this case the love which issues from the senses
and the spirit together, or from the spirit alone--they would find it
stated just as soundly and clearly. He meant us to combine both
statements, and he has done so himself with regard to love.

When, however, we have considered these exceptions, it still remains
curious how little the passionate Love-poem, with its strong personal
touch, exists in Browning's poetry. One reason may be that Love-poems of
this kind are naturally lyrical, and demand a sweet melody in the verse,
and Browning's genius was not especially lyrical, nor could he
inevitably command a melodious movement in his verse. But the main
reason is that he was taken up with other and graver matters, and
chiefly with the right theory of life; with the true relation of God and
man; and with the picturing--for absolute Love's sake, and in order to
win men to love one another by the awakening of pity--of as much of
humanity as he could grasp in thought and feeling. Isolated and personal
love was only a small part of this large design.

One personal love, however, he possessed fully and intensely. It was his
love for his wife, and three poems embody it. The first is _By the
Fireside_. It does not take rank as a true love lyric; it is too long,
too many-motived for a lyric. It is a meditative poem of recollective
tenderness wandering through the past; and no poem written on married
love in England is more beautiful. The poet, sitting silent in the room
where his wife sits with him, sees all his life with her unrolled, muses
on what has been, and is, since she came to bless his life, or what will
be, since she continues to bless it; and all the fancies and musings
which, in a usual love lyric, would not harmonise with the intensity of
love-passion in youth, exactly fit in with the peace and satisfied joy
of a married life at home with God and nature and itself. The poem is
full of personal charm. Quiet thought, profound feeling and sweet memory
like a sunlit mist, soften the aspect of the room, the image of his
wife, and all the thoughts, emotions and scenery described. It is a
finished piece of art.

The second of these poems is the Epilogue to the volumes of _Men and
Women_, entitled _One Word More_. It also is a finished piec