Yet I hardly know. When a soul has seen
By the means of Evil that Good is best,
And, through earth and its noise, what is heaven’s serene,—
When our faith in the same has stood the test—
Why, the child grown man, you burn the rod,
The uses of labour are surely done;
There remaineth a rest for the people of God:
And I have had troubles enough, for one.
R. Browning (Old Pictures in Florence).
Browning in his last poem, the well-known “Epilogue,” speaks with another voice. He wishes his friends to think of him after death as he was when alive:—