And the leaf-buds on the vine are woolly,
I noticed that, to-day;
One day more bursts them open fully,
—You know the red turns grey.
(The Lost Mistress.)
And again, those lines of poignant, passionate reserve, which sum up May and Death:
I wish that when you died last May,
Charles, there had died along with you
Three parts of spring's delightful things;
Ay, and for me, the fourth part too.
A foolish thought, and worse, perhaps!
There must be many a pair of friends
Who, arm in arm, deserve the warm
Moon-births, and the long evening-ends.
So, for their sake, be May still May!
Let their new time, as mine of old,
Do all it did for me: I bid
Sweet sights and sounds throng manifold.
Only, one little sight, one plant,
Woods have in May, that starts up green
Save a sole streak which, so to speak,
Is spring's blood, spilt its leaves between,—
That, they might spare; a certain wood
Might miss the plant; their loss were small:
But I,—whene'er the leaf grows there,
Its drop comes from my heart, that's all.
Arrived at the public gardens, Browning was careful to visit his "friends" there and to feed them—the elephant, baboon, kangaroo, ostrich, pelican, and marmosets. He had that particular camaraderie with wild animals which is almost akin to a hypnotic influence over them: and when in the country, he would "whistle softly to the lizards basking on the low walls which border the roads, to try his old power of attracting them." Flowers he enjoyed as a colour-feast for the eye; scenery he revelled in. In that perpetual contemplation of Nature, which with Wordsworth became an all-absorbent passion, Browning had but little share: his chief interest was in man. But "now and again external nature was for him ... pierced and shot through with spiritual fire."
Three times punctually he would walk round the gardens, and then walk home. Upon these daily strolls he was accompanied by his sister Sarianna: in whose love and companionship he was singularly fortunate. Sarianna Browning had always been the best of sisters to the poet and his wife,—a kindred spirit in every sense of the word; and she was now intent to supply, so far as in her lay, the place of that "soul of fire enclosed in a shell of pearl"—Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Of the dead wife, who had been all-in-all to him, Browning seldom spoke in words: but his burning need of her and hope of reunion with her gleamed continually through his writings:
"Oh, their Rafael of the dear Madonnas,
Oh, their Dante of the dread Inferno,
Wrote one song—and in my brain I sing it,
Drew one angel—borne, see, on my bosom!"