This is the perfect way to end this poem. The ending is in fact effective and consistent. The entire time, the duke speaks about how it was to have his wife besides him and how much he did not agree with her behavior. He then makes an insinuation that it was him in fact that had her killed. The ending leaves the reader in a sort of shock. The lines, "...Notice Neptune, though, / Taming a seahorse, thought a rarity, / Which Claus of Innsbruck cast in bronze for me!" are so effective in clarifying that the Duchess did not die of natural causes and it was in fact the Duke that wanted her to act in a certain way, and he did: by having her killed. And the only thing left of her is the portrait, which he praises for capturing her, after he managed to "tame" her.

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