Ah, but there should be one!
There should be one. And there's the bitterness
Of this unending torture-place for men,
For the proud soul that craves a perfectness
That might outwear the rotting of all things
Rooted in earth.
[Footnote: Josephine Preston Peabody, _Marlowe._]

The public which refuses to credit the poet with earnestness in his
quest of God may misconceive the dignified attempts of Arnold to free
himself from the tangle of doubt, and deem his beautiful gestures
purposely futile, but before condemning the poetic attitude toward
religion it must also take into account the contrary disposition of
Browning to kick his way out of difficulties with entire indifference to
the greater dignity of an attitude of resignation; and no more than
Arnold does Browning ever depict a poet who achieves religious
satisfaction. Thus the hero of _Pauline_ comes to no triumphant
issue, though he maintains,

I have always had one lode-star; now
As I look back, I see that I have halted
Or hastened as I looked towards that star,
A need, a trust, a yearning after God.

The same bafflement is Sordello's, over whom the author muses,

Of a power above you still,
Which, utterly incomprehensible,
Is out of rivalry, which thus you can