"And strew faint sweetness from some old
Egyptian's fine worm-eaten shroud
Which breaks to dust when once unrolled;
Or shredded perfume, like a cloud
From closet long to quiet vowed,
With mothed and dropping arras hung,
Mouldering her lute and books among,
As when a queen, long dead, was young."

With this music in our ears we can well forgive some of
the prosaic commonplaces which deface "Paracelsus" -- some of those lapses
from rhythmic energy to which the poet became less and less sensitive,
till he could be so deaf to the vanishing "echo of the fleeting strand"
as to sink to the level of doggerel such as that which closes
the poem called "Popularity".

"Paracelsus" is not a great, but it is a memorable poem:
a notable achievement, indeed, for an author of Browning's years.
Well may we exclaim with Festus, when we regard the poet
in all the greatness of his maturity --

"The sunrise
Well warranted our faith in this full noon!"




Chapter 4.