This week’s choice is Meeting at Night, by Robert Browning. It marks what would have been our 19th wedding anniversary.
And a voice less loud, through joys and fears,
Robert Browning (1812—1889)
Than the two hearts beating each to each!
Poem 213. 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 cove with pushing prow,
And quench its speed i’ the slushy sand.
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, through joys and fears,
Than the two hearts beating each to each!
This poem describes a homecoming—perhaps a sailor or an explorer, arriving after nightfall at a small beach in a boat, walking along the beach, crossing the fields to the farm where the spouse or sweetheart lives, tapping on the window to attract their attention and their quiet words of loving welcome overlaid by the beating of the two lovers’ hearts in synchrony.
Browning’s description of the setting is so atmospheric—it is easy to picture this little boat reaching the shore with everything lit by “the yellow half-moon” but he also catches the other senses: the salt smell of the beach, the sound of a finger tapping on glass and the striking of the match: “the quick sharp scratch/And blue spurt”—he uses short words to show the quickness of the action—and I like the “sea-scent of the beach” which reminds me of the sound of waves breaking.
I like this poem mostly for the last line: until the day she died, I felt that Nicola’s heart and mine beat “each to each”. Happy anniversary darling.
Links
- Read about the poem at Wikipedia.