And armour, we know, may be as lovely to the mere senses as a flower.

Browning's doctrine may sometimes protrude gauntly through his poetry; but at his best--as in _Rabbi ben Ezra_ or _Abt Vogler_--the thought of the poem is needful in the dance of lyrical enthusiasm, as the male partner who takes hands with beauty, and to separate them would bring the dance to a sudden close.

Both are present in _Easter Day_, and we must watch the movement of the two.

In a passage already quoted from _Christmas Eve_ the face of Christ is nobly imagined as the sun which bleaches a discoloured web.

Here the poet's imagination is as intense in its presentation of Christ the doomsman: He stood there.