Connections between Browning's poems

The narrators of 'My Last Duchess' and 'The Bishop Orders His Tomb' both hold respectable positions in their societies - As as Duke, the narrator in '...Duchess' will have been looked at as being a nobleman, while the Bishop in '...Orders His Tomb' will have been as someone to confine in, someone that could be trusted. The similarity between them, though, is that they have characteristics that are both direct contrasts of how society will have painted them. Instead of being noble, the Duke is petty and shows signs of jealousy ("but who passed without much the same smile?"), whereas the Bishop is competitive, demanding and even possibly sexuality ("Blue as a vein o'er the Madonna's breast"). Are they abusing their positions in their societies? From a western 21st century perspective, the thought of a person committing murder seems like an obvious form of immorality, and such is the case in both 'Porphyria's Lover' and 'My Last Duchess'. Also, in both of these poems, the aspect of 'stooping' (lowering the body) crops up. this term is used in these poems, however, as a form of giving up one's power, something that the Duke refuses to do ("I choose never to stoop"). In the case of 'Porphyria's Lover' the term is used to described the action of Porphyria lowering herself in front of the narrator ("And, stooping, made my cheek lie there"). Both of these poems, along with 'The Patriot', present a shift between power. In the latter, the power shift between the narrator, a war hero returning form battle, and the public worship him ("The old walls rocked with the crowds and cries"). However, in the final three stanzas, the power is in the hands of the public, who fling "stones at me for my year's misdeeds". Similar to 'Porphyria', this transition in which this shift of power takes place all occurs in one location. In all of the selected poems, at least one character's death is mentioned - Porphyria in 'Porphyria's Lover', the Duchess in 'My Last Duchess', The narrator of 'The Patriot' (he is on his way to a death sentence), The Bishop in 'The Bishop Orders His Tomb' (he is having his sons decorate his tomb), the rats in 'The Pied Piper of Hamelin' and the narrator's mother and father in 'Fra Lippo Lippi'. The idea of preservation is present in 'Porphyria's Lover' ("The smiling rosy little head") and 'My Last Duchess' ("Looking as if she were alive") - have they have both killed their partners in order to forever portray a positive part of their relationships? Religious values are mentioned in all of the selected poems, bar 'The Pied Piper...'. In 'The Patriot' and 'Porphyria's Lover', the name of God is not mentioned in the conclusion of the poem, the mention of this name is the hope for a form of protection. The narrators of 'The Bishop...' and 'Fra Lippo Lippi' are both recognised as religious figures (a Monk and a Bishop respectively) but it can be argued that they behave in an un-religious way. The Bishop is competitive and the Monk would rather devote himself to paintings that show his interpretation of the church, rather than what the church has asked of him.