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!" And in all his poems which deal with the love of man and woman, "he regarded the union of soul with soul as the capital achievement of life." He thought of love "as a supreme possession in itself, and as a revelation of infinite things which lie beyond it: as a test of character, and even as a pledge of perpetual advance in the life of the spirit." Hence, even where the shadow of death broods over a poem, as we see it _In a Gondola_, that shadow "glows with colour like the shadows of a Venetian painter." Love, to the very last, is infinitely stronger than death. * * * * * I send my heart up to thee, all my heart, In this my singing. For the stars help me, and the sea bears part; The very night is clinging Closer to Venice' streets to leave one space Above me, whence thy face May light my joyous heart to thee its dwelling-place. [Illustration: _Painting by W. Russell Flint._ IN A GONDOLA.] _He sings._