"All June I bound the rose in sheaves. Now, rose by rose, I strip the leaves And strew them where Pauline may pass. She will not turn aside? Alas! Let them lie. Suppose they die? The chance was, they might take her eye." And then, for many a month, he tried to learn the lute to please her. "To-day I venture all I know. She will not hear my music? So! Break the string; fold music's wing: Suppose Pauline had bade me sing!" Thus we gradually see that all his life he has been learning to love her. Now he has resolved to speak. . . . Heaven or hell? "She will not give me heaven? 'Tis well! Lose who may--I still can say Those who win heaven, blest are they!" Here again is Browning's typical lover. Never does he whine, never resent: she was free to choose, and she has not chosen _him_. That is pain; but of the "humiliation" commonly assigned to unsuccessful love, he never dreams: where can be humiliation in having caught God's secret? . . . And even if she have half-inclined to him, but found that not all herself can give herself--more pain in that, a nearer approach to "failure," perhaps--even so, he understands. "I said--Then dearest, since 'tis so, Since now at length my fate I know, Since nothing all my love avails, Since all, my life seemed meant for, fails, Since this was written and needs must be-- My whole heart rises up to bless Your name in pride and thankfulness! Take back the hope you gave--I claim Only a memory of the same --And this beside, if you will not blame, Your leave for one more last ride with me." The girl hesitates. Her proud dark eyes, half-pitiful, dwell on him for a moment--"with life or death in the balance," thinks he. ". . . Right! The blood replenished me again; My last thought was at least not vain; I and my mistress, side by side Shall be together, breathe and ride; So, one day more am I deified. _Who knows but the world may end to-night?_"[285:1] Now the moment comes in which he lifts her to the saddle. It is as if he had drawn down upon his breast the fairest, most celestial cloud in evening-skies . . . a cloud touched gloriously at once by setting sun and rising moon and evening-star. "Down on you, near and yet more near, Till flesh must fade for heaven was here-- Thus leant she and lingered--joy and fear! Thus lay she a moment on my breast." And then they begin to ride. His soul smooths itself out--there shall be no repining, no questioning: he will take the whole of his hour. "Had I said that, had I done this, So might I gain, so might I miss. Might she have loved me? just as well She might have hated, who can tell! * * * * * And here we are riding, she and I."