400 LITERARY PAPERS 



his forecast of what is to be. Oft with him it is "the pain 

 of Truth's deliverance troubling all within me." But with 

 courage from knowing and loving he speaks. And even at the 

 last he would face Truth whate'er presents. Those words of 

 his in "Prospice" spur on the soul to pass "Arch Fear" for 

 the Truth, "for Light," and for the "Soul of his soul." 



"I was ever a fighter, so one fight more, 



The best and the last! 

 I would hate that death bandaged my eyes, and forebore, 



And bade me creep past. 

 No! let me taste the whole of it, fare like my peers 



The heroes of old, 

 Bear the brunt, in a minute pay glad life's arrears 



Of pain, darkness, and cold. 

 For sudden the worst turns the best to the brave, 



The black minute 's at end, 

 And the elements' rage, the fiend-voices that rave, 



Shall dwindle, shall blend, 

 Shall change, shall become first a peace out of pain, 



Then a light, then thy breast, 

 O thou soul of my soul! I shall clasp thee again, 



And with God be the rest!" 



Browning is all patience with the weak, even with the false and 

 untruthful; but the lying soul is hateful to him. His far sight 

 helps him to see that in the distance all will become true and 

 truthful. With his penetrating vision he discerns all evils 

 blending into the good. He says, " So may a glory from defect 

 arise." But he urges action as essential to the real regen- 

 eration. Action towards the relatively true were better than 

 stagnation in the absolute. And all evils are as the waters of 

 the ocean whose waves in turn and time will surge over the 

 shores of Goodness and Truth. Yes, through the evil the good 

 is found, through the false the true, and in "Fifine at the Fair" 

 he tells us 



"We must endure the false, no particle of which 

 Do we acquaint us with, but up we mount a pitch 

 Above it, find our head reach truth, while hands explore 

 The false below." 



