Here, however, there is not
merely one passage of more than a hundred and fifty lines, the like of
which (I do not say in every sense the equal, but certainly the like of
which) we must go back to _Sordello_ or to _Paracelsus_ to find; but,
again and again, wherever we turn, we meet with more than usually fine
and impressive passages, single lines of more than usually exquisite
quality. The glory of the whole collection is certainly the "Walk," or
description, in rivalry with Gerard de Lairesse, of a whole day's
changes, from sunrise to sunset. To equal it in its own way, we must
look a long way back in our Browning, and nowhere out of Browning. Where
all is good, any preference must seem partial; but perhaps nothing in it
is finer than this picture of morning.

"But morning's laugh sets all the crags alight
Above the baffled tempest: tree and tree
Stir themselves from the stupor of the night
And every strangled branch resumes its right
To breathe, shakes loose dark's clinging dregs, waves free
In dripping glory. Prone the runnels plunge,
While earth, distent with moisture like a sponge,
Smokes up, and leaves each plant its gem to see,
Each grass-blade's glory-glitter. Had I known
The torrent now turned river?--masterful
Making its rush o'er tumbled ravage--stone
And stub which barred the froths and foams: no bull
Ever broke bounds in formidable sport
More overwhelmingly, till lo, the spasm
Sets him to dare that last mad leap: report
Who may--his fortunes in the deathly chasm
That swallows him in silence! Rather turn
Whither, upon the upland, pedestalled
Into the broad day-splendour, whom discern
These eyes but thee, supreme one, rightly called
Moon-maid in heaven above and, here below,
Earth's huntress-queen? I note the garb succinct
Saving from smirch that purity of snow
From breast to knee--snow's self with just the tint
Of the apple-blossom's heart-blush. Ah, the bow
Slack-strung her fingers grasp, where, ivory-linked
Horn curving blends with horn, a moonlike pair
Which mimic the brow's crescent sparkling so--
As if a star's live restless fragment winked
Proud yet repugnant, captive in such hair!
What hope along the hillside, what far bliss
Lets the crisp hair-plaits fall so low they kiss
Those lucid shoulders? M