For himself death was now inseparably intertwined with all that he had known of love, and the prospect of the supreme reunion which death, as he believed, was to bring him, drew it nearer to the core of his imagination and passion.

Not that he looked forward to it with the easy complacency of the hymn-writer.

_Prospice_ would not be the great uplifting song it is were the note of struggle, of heroic heart to bear the brunt and pay in one moment all "life's arrears of pain, darkness, and cold," less clearly sounded; and were the final cry less intense with the longing of bereavement.

How near this thought of rapturous reunion lay to the springs of Browning's imagination at this time, how instantly it leapt into poetry, may be seen from the _Eurydice to Orpheus_ which he fitly placed immediately after these-- "But give them me, the mouth, the eyes, the brow! Let them once more absorb me!" But in two well-known poems of the _Dramatis Personae_ Browning has splendidly unfolded what is implicit in the strong simple clarion--note of _Prospice_.

_Abt Vogler_ and _Rabbi ben Ezra_ are among the surest strongholds of his popular fame.