In _Love Among the Ruins_, with which _Men and Women_ originally
opened, and which some believe to be Browning's masterpiece, Love is
given its place as the supreme fact in human history. This is a
scene in the Roman Campagna at twilight, and the picture in the
first stanza reminds us of Gray's _Elegy_ in the perfection of its
quiet silver tone. With a skill nothing short of genius, Browning
has maintained in this poem a double parallel. Up to the fifth stanza,
the contrast is between the present peace of the vast solitary plain,
and its condition years ago when it was the centre of a city's
beating heart: from the fifth stanza to the close, the contrast is
between this same vanished civilisation and the eternal quality of
Love. I do not remember any other work in literature where a double
parallel is given with such perfect continuity and beauty; the first
half of each stanza is in exact antithesis to the last. The
parenthesis--_so they say_--is a delicate touch of dramatic irony.
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