Question

Meeting at Night"

The gray 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 cove1 with pushing prow2,
And quench its speed i’3 the slushy sand.

Then a mile of warm sea-scented beach;
Three fields to cross till a farm appears;
A rap at the pane4, the quick sharp scratch
And blue spurt of a lighted match,
And a voice less loud, thro’5 its joys and fears,
Than the two hearts beating each to each.
.
—Robert Browning
1 A cove is a small inlet from the sea.
2 A prow is the front end of a boat.
3 i’ is short for in.
4 Pane refers to a windowpane.
5 Thro’ is short for through.

Each stanza in this poem has six lines. Which lines rhyme within each stanza?
 

What is the main idea of this poem?
 

In ordinary language, describe the mental pictures you get from the first stanza.
 

In the first stanza, why do you think the poet says that little waves look like “fiery ringlets”?
 

What does the last line of the poem tell you?

Answer 1

I can help with one question the rymeing lines are the 3rd and 4th

Answer 2

Meeting at Night, written by Robert Browning was originally much longer in its original version. Titled in the beginning as Night and Morning, it had three stanzas instead of only two, but later on Browning decided to separate the third stanza and create them as two separate shorter poems. The first one is Meeting at Night and the second, Parting at Morning.

1. When analysing the stanzas and their rythm, one finds a very peculiar characteristic in this poem and it applies to both stanzas equally; the poet, wishing to generate a visual imagery and emotions in his readers, creates the lines in such a way that the first stanza rhymes with the sixth, the second with the fifth and the third rhymes with the fourth line. This applies, as said before, in both stanzas. You can see this because of the smiliar ending sound of the words used at the end of each of the lines that rhyme. For example, "Then a mile of warm sea-scented beach" with "Than the two hearts beating each to each.

2. The idea of the poem is to express the longing and desire that a lover has to finally reach the person he loves. This is shown through the imagery that Browning uses that expresses this longing from the speaker of the poem. For example, "And the startled little waves that leap" "In fiery ringlets from their sleep", which portrays how much the speaker cannot stop but think about his lover and compare her to nature itself.

3. In the first stanza, the image gotten is literally of a person who has to still endure time and space that separates him from the one he loves and how his mind cannot stop from thinking constantly about the longing for this person. His longing even becomes so intense, that the beauty of nature only becomes a nuisance that separates him from his ultimate goal.

4. He says this because he is comparing the image of the waves as they first rise from the sea to the way his lover looks, the way her hair rises and turns to fiery ringlets when she rises from sleep.

5. In the last line, the image given by the speaker of the poem is of a man convinced of the union and love that joins two people despite time, space, happiness and hardships. He also talks about how this union comes from much more than just physical contact; it comes from the joining of two hearts that become one.