Yon hyacinth, she loves so, leaned its staff's
Burthen of honey-coloured buds to kiss
And capture 'twixt the lips apart for this.
Then her lithe neck, three fingers might surround,
How it should waver on the pale gold ground
Up to the fruit-shaped, perfect chin it lifts!
I know, Correggio loves to mass, in rifts
Of heaven, his angel faces, orb on orb
Breaking its outline, burning shades absorb:
But these are only massed there, I should think,
Waiting to see some wonder momently
Grow out, stand full, fade slow against the sky
(That's the pale ground you'd see this sweet face by),
All heaven, meanwhile, condensed into one eye
Which fears to lose the wonder, should it wink.

One of the most original and powerful of Browning's lyrical pieces
comes just where we should least expect it, at the end of that dark,
dreary, and all but impenetrable wilderness of verse, _Fifine at the
Fair_. It serves as an _Epilogue_, but it would be difficult and
unprofitable to attempt to discover its connection with the poem to
which is appended. Its metre is unique in Browning, and stirs the
heart with inexpressible force. In music it most closely resembles
the swift thrilling roll of a snare drum, and can be read aloud in
exact accord with that instrument. Browning calls it _The Householder_,
and of course it represents in his own life the anticipated moment
when the soul leaves its house to unite with its mate. Out of the
catastrophe of death appears a radiant vision which really seems too
good to be true.