The next two poems are knit to this and to _Now_ by the strong emotion of earthly love, of the senses as well as of the spirit, for one woman; but they differ in the period at which they were written. The first, _A Pearl--A Girl_, recalls that part of the poem _By the Fireside_, when one look, one word, opened the infinite world of love to Browning. If written when he was young, it has been revised in after life. A simple ring with a single stone To the vulgar eye no stone of price: Whisper the right word, that alone-- Forth starts a sprite, like fire from ice, And lo, you are lord (says an Eastern scroll) Of heaven and earth, lord whole and sole Through the power in a pearl. A woman ('tis I this time that say) With little the world counts worthy praise Utter the true word--out and away Escapes her soul: I am wrapt in blaze, Creation's lord, of heaven and earth Lord whole and sole--by a minute's birth-- Through the love in a girl! The second--_Speculative_--also describes a moment of love-longing, but has the characteristics of his later poetry. It may be of the same date as the book, or not much earlier. It may be of his later manhood, of the time when he lost his wife. At any rate, it is intense enough. It looks back on the love he has lost, on passion with the woman he loved. And he would surrender all--Heaven, Nature, Man, Art--in this momentary fire of desire; for indeed such passion is momentary. Momentariness is the essence of the poem. "Even in heaven I will cry for the wild hours now gone by--Give me back the Earth and Thyself." _Speculative_, he calls it, in an after irony. Others may need new life in Heaven-- Man, Nature, Art--made new, assume! Man with new mind old sense to leaven, Nature--new light to clear old gloom, Art that breaks bounds, gets soaring-room. I shall pray: "Fugitive as precious-- Minutes which passed,--return, remain! Let earth's old life once more enmesh us, You with old pleasure, me--old pain, So we but meet nor part again!"