In Browning's early youth, while he was under the influence of Byron
and Pope, he found, at a bookstall, a stray copy of Shelley's _Dæmon
of the World_. From this time on, Shelley's poetry was his ideal.
The term "moulted feather" has peculiar significance from the fact
that this was a poem which Shelley afterwards rejected.
How is childlike wonder expressed in the first two stanzas? How is the
difference between the speaker and his friend indicated? Why does the
name of Shelley mean so much more to one than to the other? In the
figure that follows, what do the moor and the eagle's feather stand
for?