If I stoop Into a dark tremendous sea of cloud. It is but for a time; I press God's lamp Close to my breast; its splendour, soon or late, Will pierce the gloom: I shall emerge one day. You understand me? I have said enough? Aprile! Hand in hand with you, Aprile!" And so he dies. * * * * * CHAPTER V _THE POET OF ART_ The theory of human life which Browning conceived, and which I attempted in the last chapter to explain out of _Pauline_ and _Paracelsus_, underlies the poems which have to do with the arts. Browning as the poet of Art is as fascinating a subject as Browning the poet of Nature; even more so, for he directed of set purpose a great deal of his poetry to the various arts, especially to music and painting. Nor has he neglected to write about his own art. The lover in Pauline is a poet. Paracelsus and Aprile have both touched that art. Sordello is a poet, and so are many others in the poems. Moreover, he treats continually of himself as a poet, and of the many criticisms on his work. All through this work on the arts, the theory of which we have written appears continuously. It emerges fully in the close of _Easter-Day_. It is carefully wrought into poems like _Abt Vogler_ and _A Grammarian's Funeral_, in which the pursuit of grammar is conceived of as the pursuit of an art. It is introduced by the way in the midst of subjects belonging to the art of painting, as in _Old Pictures in Florence_ and _Andrea del Sarto_. Finally, in those poems which represent in vivid colour and selected personalities special times and forms of art, the theory still appears, but momentarily, as a dryad might show her face in a wood to a poet passing by. I shall be obliged then to touch again and again on this theory of his in discussing Browning as the poet of the arts. This is a repetition which cannot be helped, but for which I request the pardon of my readers.