No; if poetry is to _be_ perfectly written; if the art is to be brought to its noblest height; if it is to continue to lift the hearts of men into the realm where perfection lives; if it is to glow, an unwearied fire, in the world; the love of Nature must be justly mingled in it with the love of humanity. The love of humanity must be first, the love of Nature second, but they must not be divorced. When they are, when the love of Nature forms the only subject, or when the love of Man forms the only subject, poetry decays and dies. FOOTNOTES: [5] Creatures accordant with the place? [6] Browning, even more than Shelley, was fond of using the snake in his poetry. Italy is in that habit. [7] There is a fine picture of the passing of a hurricane in _Paracelsus_ (p. 67, vol i.) which illustrates this inability to stop when he has done all he needs. Paracelsus speaks: The hurricane is spent, And the good boat speeds through the brightening weather; But is it earth or sea that heaves below? The gulf rolls like a meadow-swell, o'erstrewn With ravaged boughs and remnants of the shore; And now, some islet, loosened from the land, Swims past with all its trees, sailing to ocean: _And now the air is full of uptorn canes._ _Light strippings from the fan-trees, tamarisks_ _Unrooted, with their birds still clinging to them,_ _All high in the wind_. Even so my varied life Drifts by me. I think that the lines I have italicised should have been left out. They weaken what he has well done. * * * * * CHAPTER IV _BROWNING'S THEORY OF HUMAN LIFE_ _PAULINE AND PARACELSUS_ To isolate Browning's view of Nature, and to leave it behind us, seemed advisable before speaking of his work as a poet of mankind. We can now enter freely on that which is most distinctive, most excellent in his work--his human poetry; and the first thing that meets us and in his very first poems, is his special view of human nature, and of human life, and of the relation of both to God. It marks his originality that this view was entirely his own. Ancient thoughts of course are to be found in it, but his combination of them is original amongst the English poets. It marks his genius that he wrought out this conception while he was yet so young. It is partly shaped in _Pauline_; it is fully set forth in _Paracelsus_. And it marks his consistency of mind that he never changed it. I do not think he ever added to it or developed it. It satisfied him when he was a youth, and when he was an old man. We have already seen it clearly expressed in the _Prologue_ to _Asolando_.