But the young gulped with a delirious glee
Some foretaste of their first debauch in blood
At the fierce news.
Step by step the varying passions, varying with the men of the varied cities of the League assembled at Verona, are smitten out on the anvil of Browning's imagination. Better still is the continuation of the same scene in the third book, when the night has come, and the raging of the people, reaching its height, declares war. Palma and Sordello, who are in the palace looking on the square, lean out to see and hear. On the black balcony beneath them, in the still air, amid a gush of torch-fire, the grey-haired counsellors harangue the people;
then
Sea-like that people surging to and fro
Shouted, "Hale forth the carroch—trumpets, ho,
A flourish! Run it in the ancient grooves!
Back from the bell! Hammer—that whom behoves
May hear the League is up!"