in this life of incompletions. But faith gains something for a man.
He has loved this woman. That is something gained. If this life gave all,
what were there to look forward to? `Now, heaven and she are beyond
this ride.' Again, -- and this is his closing reflection, --

"`What if heaven be, that, fair and strong'", etc.

-- Browning Soc. Papers, V., 144*.




By the Fireside.



Perhaps in no other of Mr. Browning's poems are the spiritual uses of
"the love of wedded souls" more fully set forth than in the poem,
`By the Fireside'.

The Monologue is addressed by a happy husband to his "perfect wife,
my Leonor". He looks forward to what he will do when the long,
dark autumn evenings come -- the evenings of declining age,
when the pleasant hue of his soul shall have dimmed, and the music
of all its spring and summer voices shall be dumb in life's November.
In his "waking dreams" he will "live o'er again" the happy life
he has spent with his loved and loving companion. Passing out
where the backward vista ends, he will survey, with her,
the pleasant wood through which they have journeyed together.
To the hazel-trees of England, where their childhood passed,