But his fury with her passes away into the passion of despair-- My brain is drowned now--quite drowned: all I feel Is ...

is, at swift recurring intervals, A hurry-down within me, as of waters Loosened to smother up some ghastly pit: There they go--whirls from a black fiery sea! lines which must have been suggested to Browning by verses, briefer and more intense, in Webster's _Duchess of Malfi_.

Even Ottima, lifted by her love, which purifies itself in wishing to die for her lover, repents.
Not me,--to him, O God, be merciful! Thus into this cauldron of sin Browning steals the pity of God.

We know they will be saved, so as by fire.
Then there is the poem on the story of _Cristina and Monaldeschi_; a subject too odious, I think, to be treated lyrically.

It is a tale of love turned to hatred, and for good cause, and of the pitiless vengeance which followed.