Shot downwardly. On every side,
Caught past escape, the earth was lit;
As if a dragon's nostril split
And all his famished ire o'erflowed;
Then as he winced at his lord's goad,
Back he inhaled: whereat I found
The clouds into vast pillars bound,
Based on the corners of the earth
Propping the skies at top: a dearth
Of fire i' the violet intervals,
Leaving exposed the utmost walls
Of time, about to tumble in
And end the world."

Judgment, according to the vision, is now over. He who has chosen earth
rather than heaven, is allowed his choice: earth is his for ever. How
the walls of the world shrink and narrow, how the glow fades off from
the beauty of nature, of art, of science; how the judged soul prays for
only a chance of love, only a hope of ultimate heaven; how the ban is
taken off him, and he wakes from the vision on the grey plain as
Easter-morn is breaking: this, with its profound and convincing moral
lessons, is told, without a didactic note, in poetry of sustained
splendour. In sheer height of imagination _Easter-Day_ could scarcely
exceed the greatest parts of _Christmas-Eve_, but it preserves a level
of more equable splendour, it is a work of art of more chastened
workmanship. In its ethical aspect it is also of special importance,
for, while the poet does not necessarily identify himself in all
respects with the seer of the vision, the poem enshrines some of
Browning's deepest convictions on life and religion.

15. MEN AND WOMEN.

[Published in 1855, in 2 vols.; now dispersed in Vols. IV.,
V. and VI. of _Poetical Works_, 1889.]

The series of _Men and Women_, fifty-one poems in number, represents
Browning's genius at its ripe maturity, its highest uniform level. In
this central work of his career, every element of his genius is equally
developed, and the whole brought into a perfection of harmony never
before or since attained. There is no lack, there is no excess. I do not
say that the poet has not touched higher heights since, or perhaps
before; but that he has never since nor before maintained himself so
long on so high a height, never exhibited the rounded perfection, the
imagination, thought, passion, melody, variety, all fused in one, never
produced a single work or group at once so great and so various, admits,
I think, of little doubt. Here are fifty poems, every one of which, in
its way, is a masterpiece;