That autumn eve was stilled: A last remains of sunset dimly burned O'er the far forests, like a torch-flame turned By the wind back upon its bearer's hand In one long flare of crimson; as a brand The woods beneath lay black. A single eye From all Verona cared for the soft sky. And if we desire a sunrise, there is the triumphant beginning of _Pippa Passes_--a glorious outburst of light, colour and splendour, impassioned and rushing, the very upsoaring of Apollo's head behind his furious steeds. It begins with one word, like a single stroke on the gong of Nature: it continues till the whole of the overarching vault, and the world below, in vast disclosure, is flooded with an ocean of gold. Day! Faster and more fast, O'er night's brim, day boils at last; Boils, pure gold, o'er the cloud-cup's brim Where spurting and suppressed it lay. For not a froth-flake touched the rim Of yonder gap in the solid gray Of the eastern cloud, an hour away; But forth one wavelet, then another, curled. Till the whole sunrise, not to be suppressed, Rose, reddened, and its seething breast Flickered in bounds, grew gold, then overflowed the world. This is chiefly of the sky, but the description in that gipsy-hearted poem, _The Flight of the Duchess_, brings before us, at great length, league after league of wide-spreading landscape. It is, first, of the great wild country, cornfield, vineyards, sheep-ranges, open chase, till we arrive at last at the mountains; and climbing up among their pines, dip down into a yet vaster and wilder country, a red, drear, burnt-up plain, over which we are carried for miles: Till at the last, for a bounding belt, Comes the salt sand hoar of the great sea-shore. Or we may read the _Grammarian's Funeral_, where we leave the city walls and climb the peak on whose topmost ledge he is to be buried. As we ascend the landscape widens; we see it expanding in the verse. Moreover, with a wonderful power, Browning makes us feel the air grow keener, fresher, brighter, more soundless and lonelier. That, too, is given by the verse; it is a triumph in Nature-poetry.