It seems to be admitted, even by many of the poet's
most devoted students, that his verse is, in its general character,
harsh and rugged. To judge it fairly, one must free his mind
of many merely conventional canons in regard to verse.
Pure music is absolute. The music of verse moves, or should move,
under the conditions of the thought which articulates it. It should
serve as a chorus to the thought, expressing a mystic sympathy
with it. Verse may be very musical, and yet more or less mechanical;
that is, it may CLOTHE thought and sentiment, but not be a part
of it, not EMBODY it. Unrippled verse, which many readers demand,
MUST be more or less mechanical. Such verse flows according to
its own sweet will, independently of the thought-articulation.
But the thought-articulation may be so flimsy that it's well enough
for the verse so to flow.

The careful student of Browning's language-shaping must discover --
the requisite susceptibility to vitality of form being supposed --
that his verse is remarkably organic: often, indeed, more organic,
even when it appears to be clumsy, than the "faultily faultless" verse
of Tennyson. The poet who has written `In a Gondola',
`By the Fireside', `Meeting at Night', `Parting at Morning',
`Gold Hair', `May and Death', `Love among the Ruins',
`Home Thoughts from Abroad', `Home Thoughts from the Sea',
the Incantation in `The Flight of the Duchess' (some of which are both
song and picture), and many, many more that might be named,
certainly has the very highest faculty of word and verse music,
of music, too, that is entirely new in English Poetry;
and it can be shown that he always exercises that faculty