What would I have? What is this "sleep" which seems
To bound all? Can there be a "waking" point
Of crowning life?
And what is that I hunger for but God?
So, having worked towards perfection, having realised that he cannot have it here, he sees at last that the failures of earth are a prophecy of a perfection to come. He claims the infinite beyond. "I believe," he cries, "in God and truth and love. Know my last state is happy, free from doubt or touch of fear."
That is Browning all over. These are the motives of a crowd of poems, varied through a crowd of examples; never better shaped than in the trenchant and magnificent end of Easter-Day, where the questions and answers are like the flashing and clashing of sharp scimitars. Out of the same quarry from which Pauline was hewn the rest were hewn. They are polished, richly sculptured, hammered into fair form, but the stone is the same. Few have been so consistent as Browning, few so true to their early inspiration. He is among those happy warriors
Who, when brought
Among the tasks of real life, have wrought
Upon the plan that pleased their boyish thought.