Browning's poetry, as he elsewhere expresses it, was always dramatic
in principle, always an attempt to interpret human life. With that
large number of highly respectable and useful persons who do not
care whether they understand him or not, I have here no concern: but
to those who really wish to learn his secret, I insist that his main
intention must ever be kept in mind. Much of his so-called obscurity,
harshness, and uncouthness falls immediately into its proper place,
is indeed necessary. The proof of his true greatness not as a
philosopher, thinker, psychologist, but as a poet, lies in the
simple fact that when the subject-matter he handles is beautiful or
sublime, his style is usually adequate to the situation. Browning
had no difficulty in writing melodiously when he placed the posy in
the Ring,
O lyric Love, half angel and half bird
And all a wonder and a wild desire,
although just a moment before, when he was joking about his lack of
readers, he was anything but musical.
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