rowning also. _If_
Mazzini's explanation was the true one, it is another proof of the
difficulty of tabulating humanity, or of making a science of human
nature. For the Individualist Browning, far from being remarkable for
sadness, was the greatest of optimists amongst English poets. He had a
far wider range of sympathies, than Carlyle, for failure attracted
him, as much as victory, the Conquered equally with the Conqueror,
indeed every shade of character interested him. Perhaps he expresses
through "Cleon" some of his own strongest feelings, his insistence on
the worth of individuality, his craving for deeper joy, fuller life
than this world gives, and his horror of the destruction of
personality. Cleon, the Greek Artist, is indeed "the other side" to
the poetic altruism of "The Pilgrims" and "The Choir Invisible." Never
was the yearning for Personal Continuance more vividly and more
humanly presented. The Greek Artist, without any knowledge of, or
belief in Immortality, hungers after it. Browning represents him as
writing to and arguing with the King, who has said:

"My life......
Dies altogether with my brain, and arm,......
....triumph Thou, who dost _not_ go."

And Cleon says if Sappho and AEschylus survive because we sing her
songs, and read his plays, let them come, "drink from thy cup, speak
in my place."

Instead of rejoicing in his works surviving he feels the horror of the
contrast, the life within his works, the decay within his heart. He
compares his sense of joy growing more acute and his soul's power and
insight more enlarged and keen, while his bodily powers decay. His
hairs fall more and more, his hand shakes, and the heavy years
increase.

He realises:--

"The horror quickening....
The consummation coming past escape,
When I shall know most, and yet least enjoy--
When all my works wherein I prove my worth,
Being present still to mock me in men's mouths,
Alive still, in the phrase of such as thou,
I, I, the feeling, thinking, acting man,
The man who loved his life so over much,
Shall sleep in my Urn. . . It is so horrible."

He imagines in his need some future state may be revealed by Zeus.

"Unlimited in capability
For joy, as this is in desire for joy,
To seek which the joy hunger forces us:"

He speculates that this life may have been made straight, "to make
sweet the life at large."

And that we are: "freed by the throbbing impulse we call Death." But