Unpicking the poems

‘Meeting at Night’ and ‘Parting at Morning’ by Robert Browning

‘Meeting at Night’ and ‘Parting at Morning’ are frequently published as a pair in poetry
anthologies; they were originally published as one poem in two sections, before Browning
divided them and gave them separate titles.

First impressions

1. Who is speaking?
2. Where is the speaker?
3. What is he speaking about?
4. What atmosphere does the speaker create?

Close analysis of the poems

‘Meeting at Night’

1. In the opening lines, how does Browning use visual imagery?

2. What kind of atmosphere is created?
3. Notice the energy in lines 3-4. How is the energy created and how does it contrast with
that of the first two lines? What do you think this energy symbolises?
4. Look at lines 5-6. What image is created here? Look at the onomatopoeic conclusion.
What is the effect of the repetition of the conjunction ‘and’?
5. Why do you think that the only end-stop comes at the end of the first stanza?
6. Why does Browning begin the second stanza with the adverb ‘Then’?
7. How does Browning change the mood and energy of the poem in the second stanza? Look
particularly at the sensory description created through the use of sibilance.
8. How is continuous movement and a sense of anticipation suggested in line 8?
9. How is a sense of movement and urgency suggested in lines 9-10? What is the poem and
the speaker hurtling towards?
10. In lines 11-12 how is the external sound of the ‘voice’ contrasted with the internal
beating of the ‘two hearts’? What does this suggest that their love transcends?

‘Parting at Morning’

1. Browning himself said that ‘Parting at Morning’ is a ‘confession of how fleeting is the
belief’ implied in ‘Meeting at Night’ ‘that such raptures are self-sufficient and enduring’.
What do you think he meant?
2. What is the effect of the alliteration in lines 1 and 2?
3. Why is the sun personified in line 2 and why is it referred to by the masculine pronoun
‘him’ in line 3? What does this suggest about male power and the dominance of nature?
4. What metaphor is used to describe the sun’s rays and what does it suggest is drawing the
speaker away from his lover?
5. What ultimately does the speaker need more than love?

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