With the exception of Shakespeare, any other English poet could now
be spared more easily than Browning. For, owing to his aim in poetry,
and his success in attaining it, he gave us much vital truth and
beauty that we should seek elsewhere in vain; and, as he said in the
_Epilogue_ to _Pacchiarotio_, the strong, heady wine of his verse
may become sweet in process of time.
III
LYRICS
A pure lyric, as distinguished from other kinds of poetry, narrative,
descriptive, epic, dramatic, should have three characteristic
qualities, immediately evident on the first reading: it should be
short, it should be melodious, it should express only one mood. A
very long lyrical poem has never been written, and probably could
not be: a lyric without fluent melody is unthinkable: and a poem
representing a great variety of moods would more properly be classed
as descriptive or dramatic than lyrical. Examples of the perfect
lyric in nineteenth century English poetry are Shelley's _I Arise
From Dreams of Thee_; Keats's _Bright Star_; Byron's _She Walks in
Beauty_; Tennyson's _Break, Break, Break_.
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