V. ‘On the Cliff’.--Leaning on the barren turf, which is dead to the roots, and looking at a rock, flat as an anvil’s face, and left dry by the surf, with no trace of living thing about it (Death’s altar by the lone shore), she sees a cricket spring gay, with films of blue, upon the parched turf, and a beautiful butterfly settle and spread its two red fans, on the rock. And then there is to her, wholly taken up, as she is, with their beauty, “No turf, no rock; in their ugly stead, See, wonderful blue and red!” and they symbolize to her, Love settling unawares upon men, the level and low, the burnt and bare, in themselves (as are the turf and the rock). VI. ‘Reading a Book, under the Cliff’.--The first six stanzas of this section she reads from a book. * -- * They were composed by Mr. Browning when in his 23d year, and published in 1836, in ‘The Monthly Repository’, vol. x., pp. 270, 271, and entitled simply ‘Lines’. They were revised and introduced into this section of ‘James Lee’, which was published in ‘Dramatis Personae’ in 1864. -- Her experiences have carried her beyond what these Lines convey, and she speaks of them somewhat sarcastically and ironically. This “young man”, she thinks, will be wiser in time, “for kind Calm years, exacting their accompt Of pain, mature the mind:” and then the wind, when it begins among the vines, so low, so low, will have for him another language; such as this:-- “Here is the change beginning, here the lines Circumscribe beauty, set to bliss The limit time assigns.” This is the language SHE has learned: We cannot draw one beauty into our hearts’ core, and keep it changeless. This is the old woe of the world; the tune, to whose rise and fall we live and die. RISE WITH IT, THEN! REJOICE THAT MAN IS HURLED FROM CHANGE TO CHANGE UNCEASINGLY, HIS SOUL’S WINGS NEVER FURLED! To this philosophy of life has she been brought. But she must still sadly reflect how bitter it is for man not to grave, on his soul, one fair, good, wise thing just as he grasped it! For himself death’s wave; while time washes (ah, the sting!) o’er all he’d sink to save. This reflection must be understood, in her own case, as prompted by her unconquerable wifely love. It is this which points the sting. VII. ‘Among the Rocks’.--The brown old earth, in autumn, when all the glories of summer are fading, or have faded, wears a good gigantic smile, looking not backward, but forward, with his feet in the ripples of the sea-wash, and listening to the sweet twitters of the ‘white-breasted sea-lark’. The entire stanza has a mystical meaning and must be interpreted in its connection. She has reached, in this soliloquy, high ground:-- “If you loved only what were worth your love, Love were clear gain, and wholly well for you: Make the low nature better by your throes! GIVE EARTH YOURSELF, GO UP FOR GAIN ABOVE!”