Meeting at Night

Meeting At Night 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! Robert Browning This is another one of Browning's love poems for which he is famous. "Meeting at Night" is divided into two stanzas of six verses each. Each stanza is numbered, as if they were chapters of the poems. The rhyme scheme is "A-B-C-C-B-A"; this rhyme scheme is unusual yet pleasing for it is like a wave: the schemse starts at "A", reaches the bottom at the two "C's" and goes back to the top at the final "A" of the stanza. This poem, like the name suggests, is about a trip and the final meeting of the two lovers. In the first stanza, the voyage of one of the protagonists is discussed. The elements of "Night" can be found in verse one "The grey sea and the long black land", where the land and sea are dark because of no light, and in verse two "And the yellow half -moon large and low". The protagonist by sea reaches land, a "slushy sand" (verse six) beach. In the second stanza the trip of the protagonist continues, crossing fields to finally reach his home. He taps the pane (verse nine) and after "joys and fears" (verse eleven), the two lovers are finally together. A further analysis of "Meeting at Night" Excerpt of an essay of "Meeting at Night" First part of an essay of "Meeting at Night"