"Ask the gier-eagle why she stoops at once
Into the vast and unexplored abyss,
What full-grown power informs her from the first,
Why she not marvels, strenuously beating
The silent boundless regions of the sky."

There is one passage, beautiful in itself, which has
a pathetic significance henceforth. Gordon, our most revered hero,
was wont to declare that nothing in all nonscriptural literature
was so dear to him, nothing had so often inspired him in moments of gloom: --

"I go to prove my soul!
I see my way as birds their trackless way.
I shall arrive! What time, what circuit first,
I ask not: but unless God send His hail
Or blinding fireballs, sleet or stifling snow,
In some time, His good time, I shall arrive:
He guides me and the bird. In his good time."

As for the much misused `Shakespearian' comparison, so often
mistakenly applied to Browning, there is nothing in "Paracelsus"
in the least way derivative. Because Shakespeare is the greatest genius
evolved from our race, it does not follow that every lofty intellect,
every great objective poet, should be labelled "Shakespearian".
But there is a certain quality in poetic expression which we so specify,
because the intense humanity throbbing in it finds highest utterance
in the greatest of our poets: and there is at least one instance
of such poignant speech in "Paracelsus", worthy almost to be ranked
with the last despairing cry of Guido calling upon murdered Pompilia: --