As she left the attic--there,
By the rim of the bottle labelled "Ether"--
And stole from stair to stair,

'And stood by the rose-wreathed gate. Alas!
We loved, sir; used to meet.
How sad and bad and mad it was!
But then, how it was sweet!'

The second period of Mr. Browning's poetry demands a different line of
argument; for it is, in my judgment, folly to deny that he has of late
years written a great deal which makes very difficult reading indeed.
No doubt you may meet people who tell you that they read 'The Ring and
the Book' for the first time without much mental effort; but you will
do well not to believe them. These poems are difficult--they cannot
help being so. What is 'The Ring and the Book'? A huge novel in 20,000
lines--told after the method not of Scott but of Balzac; it tears the
hearts out of a dozen characters; it tells the same story from ten
different points of view. It is loaded with detail of every kind and
description: you are let off nothing. As with a schoolboy's life at a
large school, if he is to enjoy it at all, he must fling himself into
it, and care intensely about everything--so the reader of 'The Ring
and the Book' must be interested in everybody and everything, down to
the fact that the eldest daughter of the counsel for the prosecution
of Guido is eight years old on the very day he is writing his speech,
and that he is going to have fried liver and parsley for his supper.

If you are prepared for this, you will have your reward; for the
_style_, though rugged and involved, is throughout, with the
exception of the speeches of counsel, eloquent, and at times superb;