"boyhood of wonder and hope,
Present promise and wealth of the future beyond the eye's scope,"
all the fulness and glory of the life of humanity gathered upon his single head. It is the very voice of life, which thrills and strikes across the spiritual darkness of Saul, as the coming of Hyperion scattered the shadows of Saturnian night.
[24] E.B.B. to R.B., Dec. 10, 1845.
CHAPTER IV.
WEDDED LIFE IN ITALY. MEN AND WOMEN.
This foot, once planted on the goal;
This glory-garland round my soul.
—The Last Ride Together.
Warmer climes
Give brighter plumage, stronger wing; the breeze
Of Alpine highths thou playest with, borne on
Beyond Sorrento and Amalfi, where
The Siren waits thee, singing song for song.
—LANDOR.
I.
The Bells and Pomegranates made no very great way with the public, which found the matter unequal and the title obscure. But both the title and the greater part of the single poems are linked inseparably with the most intimate personal relationship of his life. Hardly one of the Romances, as we saw, but had been read in MS. by Elizabeth Barrett, and pronounced upon with the frank yet critical delight of her nature. In the abstruse symbolic title, too,—implying, as Browning expected his readers to discover, "sound and sense" [or] "music and discoursing,"—her wit had divined a more felicitous application to Browning's poetry—