He, on the contrary, kept the moment for ever, and with it, her and all she might have been with him.
Her soul's mine: and thus grown perfect, I shall pass my life's remainder.
This is not the usual Love-poem.

It is a love as spiritual, as mystic, even more mystic, since the woman lives, than the lover felt for Evelyn Hope.
The second motive in _Cristina_ of the lover who meets the true partner of his soul or hers, and either seizes the happy hour and possesses joy for ever, or misses it and loses all, is a favourite with Browning.

He repeats it frequently under diverse circumstances, for it opened out so many various endings, and afforded so much opportunity for his beloved analysis.

Moreover, optimist as he was in his final thought of man, he was deeply conscious of the ironies of life, of the ease with which things go wrong, of the impossibility of setting them right from without.

And in the matter of love he marks in at least four poems how the moment was held and life was therefore conquest.