Dead as he is, we feel him to be alive; never resting, pushing on incessantly, beating failure beneath his feet, making it the step for further search for the infinite, resolute to live in the dull limits of the present work, but never content save in waiting for that eternity which will fulfil the failure of earth; which, missing earth's success, throws itself on God, dying to gain the highest.

This is the passion of the poem, and Browning is in it like a fire.

It was his own, his very life.

He pours it into the students who rejoice in the death of their master, and he gives it to us as we read the poem.

And then, because conception, imagination, and intensity of thought and emotion all here work together, as in _Abt Vogler_, the melody of the poem is lovely, save in one verse which ought to be out of the poem.