Balls and masks begun at midnight, burning ever to mid-day
When they made up fresh adventures for the morrow do you say?
Was a lady such a lady, cheeks so round and lips so red,—
On her neck the small face buoyant, like a bell-flower on its bed,
O’er the breasts superb abundance where a man might base his head?
Well (and it was graceful of them), they’d break talk off and afford
—She, to bite her mask’s black velvet, he, to finger on his sword,
While you sat and play’d Toccatas, stately at the clavichord?
It will, perhaps, be found that this composite style of Browning’s invention is of all in the Victorian age the one that has had most influence upon the poetry of our own time.