There they stood, ranged along the hill-sides, met To view the last of me, a living frame For one more picture! in a sheet of flame I saw them and I knew them all. And yet Dauntless the slug-horn to my lips I set And blew, "_Childe Roland to the Dark Tower came_." ... At noon, Browning would make a second and more substantial breakfast on Italian dishes; and at three o'clock regularly, a friend's gondola, which was always at hand to convey him, came and carried him, usually, to the Lido,--his favourite spot. "I walk, even in wind or rain," he wrote, "for a couple of hours on Lido, and enjoy the break of sea on the strip of sand, as much as Shelley did in those old days.... Go there,--if only to be blown about by the sea-wind!" The sea-wind, indeed, was the very utterance of his own robust and vigorous nature, his keen alertness of sense, and his impetuous, impulsive spirit. In the course of the afternoon, he would explore Venice in all directions, studying her multitudinous points of interest and beauty. The daughter of his hostess, Mrs. Bronson, sometimes companioned him on these excursions, guiding him through the narrow by-streets, or examining, with him, the monuments, sculptures and frescoes of the churches. Art, in its various manifestations, had been a life-long study with Browning. He took great delight in modelling in clay, and had for some while studied sculpture under Story. He possessed the artistic temperament--fiery, nervous, susceptible--in its sanest form: and not only was he able to express all an artist's aims, ambitions, and despairs, but to arrive in all his poems, at one point or other, at a superb pictorial moment. Some of his lines are penetrated from end to end with this remarkable pictorial quality: perhaps the most notable example is _Love Among the Ruins_, with its triple contrast,--the infinite calm of the pasture-lands prolonging themselves into the sunset, the noise and vital movement which had filled the now-vanished city,--and the lover, endeavouring to curb his impatience for the one beloved face by dwelling on these outward things: * * * * * And I know, while thus the quiet-coloured eve Smiles to leave To their folding, all our many-tinkling fleece In such peace, And the slopes and rills in undistinguished grey Melt away-- That a girl with eager eyes and yellow hair Waits me there In the turret whence the charioteers caught soul For the goal, When the king looked, where she looks now, breathless, dumb Till I come. [Illustration: _Painting by W. Russell Flint_. LOVE AMONG THE RUINS.] Where the quiet-coloured end of evening smiles Miles and miles On the solitary pastures where our sheep Half asleep Tinkle homeward thro' the twilight, stray or stop As they crop--