But no! Zeus has not yet revealed it; and alas, He must have done so, were it possible! This is one only of Browning's statements of what he held to be the fierce necessity for another life.

Without it, nothing is left for humanity, having arrived at full culture, knowledge, at educated love of beauty, at finished morality and unselfishness--nothing in the end but Cleon's cry--sorrowful, somewhat stern, yet gentle--to Protus, Live long and happy, and in that thought die, Glad for what was.

Farewell.
But for those who are not Cleon and Protus, not kings in comfort or poets in luxury, who have had no gladness, what end--what is to be said of them?
I will not stay to speak of _A Death in the Desert_, which is another of these poems, because the most part of it is concerned with questions of modern theology.

St.John awakes into clear consciousness just before his death in the cave where he lies tended by a few disciples.

He foresees some of the doubts of this century and meets them as he can.