"We shouted, every man of us, And steered right into the harbour thus, With pomp and paean glorious." It is, however, too long for present quotation, and as an example of Browning's early lyrics I select rather the rich and delicate second of these "Paracelsus" songs, one wherein the influence of Keats is so marked, and yet where all is the poet's own: -- "Heap cassia, sandal-buds and stripes Of labdanum, and aloe-balls, Smeared with dull nard an Indian wipes From out her hair: such balsam falls Down sea-side mountain pedestals, From tree-tops where tired winds are fain, Spent with the vast and howling main, To treasure half their island-gain. "And strew faint sweetness from some old Egyptian's fine worm-eaten shroud Which breaks to dust when once unrolled; Or shredded perfume, like a cloud From closet long to quiet vowed, With mothed and dropping arras hung, Mouldering her lute and books among, As when a queen, long dead, was young." With this music in our ears we can well forgive some of the prosaic commonplaces which deface "Paracelsus" -- some of those lapses from rhythmic energy to which the poet became less and less sensitive, till he could be so deaf to the vanishing "echo of the fleeting strand" as to sink to the level of doggerel such as that which closes the poem called "Popularity". "Paracelsus" is not a great, but it is a memorable poem: a notable achievement, indeed, for an author of Browning's years. Well may we exclaim with Festus, when we regard the poet in all the greatness of his maturity -- "The sunrise Well warranted our faith in this full noon!" Chapter 4. The `Athenaeum' dismissed "Paracelsus" with a half contemptuous line or two. On the other hand, the `Examiner' acknowledged it to be a work of unequivocal power, and predicted for its author a brilliant career. The same critic who wrote this review contributed an article of about twenty pages upon "Paracelsus" to the `New Monthly Magazine', under the heading, "Evidences of a New Dramatic Poetry". This article is ably written, and remarkable for its sympathetic insight. "Mr. Browning," the critic writes, "is a man of genius, he has in himself all the elements of a great poet, philosophical as well as dramatic." The author of this enthusiastic and important critique was John Forster. When the `Examiner' review appeared the two young men had not met: but the encounter, which was to be the seed of so fine a flower of friendship, occurred before the publication of the `New Monthly' article. Before this, however, Browning had already made one of the most momentous acquaintanceships of his life.