ereotyped completeness of the lower existences supplies him here also
with a warning.

The title of "BIFURCATION" refers to two paths in life, followed
respectively by two lovers whom circumstances divide. The case is not
unusual. The woman sacrifices love to duty, and expects her lover to
content himself with her choice. Why not, she thinks? She will be
constant to him; they will be united in the life to come. And meanwhile,
she is choosing what for her is the smoother and safer path, while for
him it is full of stumbling-blocks. Love's guidance is refused him, and
he falls. Which of these two has been the sinner: he who sinned
unwillingly, or she who caused the sin? We feel that Mr. Browning
condemns the apparent saint.

"PISGAH SIGHTS. I." depicts life as it may _seem_ to one who is leaving
it; who is, as it were, "looking over the ball." As seen from this
position, Good and Evil are reconciled, and even prove themselves
indispensable to each other. The seer becomes aware that it is unwise to
strive against the mixed nature of existence; vain to speculate on its
cause. But the knowledge is bittersweet, for it comes too late.

"PISGAH SIGHTS. II." is a view of life as it _might_ be, if the
knowledge just described did not come too late; and shows that according
to Mr. Browning's philosophy it would be no life at all. The speaker
declares that if he had to live again, he would take everything as he
found it. He would neither dive nor soar; he would strive neither to
teach nor to reform. He would keep to the soft and shady paths; learn by
quiet observation; and allow men of all kinds to pass him by, while he
remained a fixture. He would gain the benefit of the distance with those
below and above him, since he would be magnified for the one class,
while seen from a softening point of view by the other. And so also he
would admire the distant brightness, "the mightiness yonder," the more
for keeping his own place. If seen too closely, _the star might prove a
glow-worm_.

EMOTIONAL POEMS.

LOVE.

Those of Mr. Browning's poems which are directly prompted by thought
have their counterpart in a large number which are specially inspired by
emotion; and must be noticed as such. But this group will perhaps be the
most artificial of all; for while thought is with him often uncoloured
by feeling, he seldom expresses feeling as detached from thought. The
majority, for instance, of his love poems are introduced by the