Unable to divest himself of his poetry altogether, for he has no other art, he lays aside his habitual dramatic guise to speak, for once, not as Lippo, Roland, or Andrea, but "in his true person." And he strips off the veil of his art and speaks in his own person only to declare that speech is needless, and to fall upon that exquisite symbol of an esoteric love uncommunicated and incommunicable to the apprehension of the world,--the moon's other face with all its "silent silver lights and darks," undreamed of by any mortal.

"Heaven's gift takes man's abatement," and poetry itself may only hint at the divinity of perfect love.

The _One Word More_ was written in September 1855, shortly before the publication of the volume it closed, as the old moon waned over the London roofs.

Less than six years later the "moon of poets" had passed for ever from his ken..