Both were strong to the end, and imaginative joy was their companion.

But the verse in which Browning winds up his answer is one of the finest in his poetry.
So, force is sorrow, and each sorrow, force; What then?
since Swiftness gives the charioteer The palm, his hope be in the vivid horse Whose neck God clothed with thunder, not the steer Sluggish and safe! Yoke Hatred, Crime, Remorse, Despair; but ever mid the whirling fear, Let, through the tumult, break the poet's face Radiant, assured his wild slaves win the race! _La Saisiaz_ is a more important poem: it describes the sudden death of his friend, Ann Egerton Smith, and passes from that, and all he felt concerning it, into an argument on the future life of the soul, with the assumption that God is, and the soul.

The argument is interesting, but does not concern us here.

What does concern us is that Browning has largely recovered his poetical way of treating a subject.

He is no longer outside of it, but in it.