Meeting at Night

“Meeting at Night” is a lyric love poem by English Victorian poet Robert Browning. It was published early in Browning’s career, in his 1845 collection Dramatic Romances and Lyrics, where it appeared as the first part of a poem titled “Night and Morning.” In 1849, Browning separated it into two poems, titled “Meeting at Night” and “Parting at Morning.” Browning’s poetry is often difficult, but “Meeting at Night” is straightforward to understand. The poem describes a man going to a secret meeting with his lover at night. Under moonlight, he crosses the sea in a small boat and then walks several miles across fields to a farmhouse where his beloved eagerly awaits him. The poem was written soon after Browning began courting his future wife, the poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning, which may account for the romantic glow that suffuses it. 

Poet Biography

Robert Browning was born in Camberwell, London, on May 7, 1812. His father was a bank clerk who was also a scholar and book collector; his mother was a pianist. Browning attended a boarding school and soon showed a gift for languages, including Greek, Latin, and French. He was also influenced by the work of English Romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, which he first read when he was 13 years old. Following Shelley’s lead, he decided to become an atheist, although that was not a position he took in his later years. For two years beginning when he was 14, Browning was educated at home by various tutors; then, in 1828, he enrolled as a student at the University of London. He did not continue there, however, preferring to pursue his education by following his own interests and working at his own pace. His first poem was “Pauline,” published in 1833, and for a decade beginning in the mid-1830s, he wrote plays, none of which were successful. In 1842, he published Dramatic Lyrics, which included “My Last Duchess,” a dramatic monologue that later became one of his best-known poems.  

In 1844, Browning read a volume of poetry by Elizabeth Barrett, who at the time was a well-established poet. Browning wrote to her, and they began a correspondence, meeting in person in 1845. Barrett was six years older than Browning and was living in her father’s house in London. She and Browning soon became romantically involved and married in 1846, despite the opposition of Barrett’s father. The newlyweds moved to Italy, first to Pisa and then Florence, where they lived until Elizabeth’s death in Florence in 1861. They had one child, Robert, known as Pen, in 1849. While in Italy, Browning published Men and Women (1855), a volume of verse that included notable poems such as “Love Among the Ruins,” “Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came,” and the dramatic monologues “Fra Lippo Lippi” and “Andrea del Sarto,” although the collection did not attract much notice at the time.

Browning returned to England with his son in 1862, and they lived in London. From this point on, Browning’s reputation began to grow, and he was seen in many quarters as the equal of the leading poet of the age, Alfred, Lord Tennyson. In 1864, he published Dramatis Personae, which included the dramatic monologues “Caliban Upon Setebos” and “Rabbi Ben Ezra.” He followed this with The Ring and the Book (1868-1869), a long poem in 12 books based on a murder that took place in Rome in the 1690s. Each character in the story tells his side of it in a dramatic monologue. Browning continued to publish during the 1870s. In 1881, the Browning Society was created, and he was awarded honorary degrees by Oxford University in 1882 and the University of Edinburgh in 1884. He died on December 12, 1889. 

Poem Text

I

The grey sea and the long black land;

And the yellow half-moon large and low;

And the startled little waves that leap

In fiery ringlets from their sleep,

As I gain the cove with pushing prow,

And quench its speed i’ the slushy sand.

II

Then a mile of warm sea-scented beach;

Three fields to cross till a farm appears;

A tap at the pane, the quick sharp scratch

And blue spurt of a lighted match,

And a voice less loud, thro’ its joys and fears,

Than the two hearts beating each to each!

Browning, Robert. “Meeting at Night.” 1845. Poetry Foundation. 

Summary

In the first of two six-line stanzas, the first-person speaker describes the final moments of his voyage across the sea in a small boat at night. The sea and the land are dark, but the moon offers some light. He reaches a cove, and the boat slows as it reaches the sandy shore. In the second stanza, he walks along the beach for a mile and then crosses three fields until he comes to a farm. He taps at the window of the farmhouse, and his beloved responds by striking a match and calling softly to him in a voice that conveys both happiness and anxiety. The lovers’ hearts beat loudly in anticipation of their nighttime encounter.