Meeting at Night

“Meeting at Night” is a poem by celebrated Victorian poet Robert Browning who came to be one of the most important and influential poets of his day – unusually, reading societies dedicated to his works sprung up while he was still alive. Even today, he is a widely read and studied poet, whose erudite and sometimes challenging style lends itself to close reading. “Meeting at Night” was first published in an 1845 collection of poems, Dramatic Romances and Lyrics, in which it was titled “Night” and paired with another poem titled “Morning”; these two were later, in 1849, separated into two distinct poems, and retitled “Meeting at Night,” and “Parting at Morning.” This summary only concerns the former. “Meeting at Night” is one of Browning's shorter and most beloved poems. It spans only two short stanzas, telling the story of one lover traveling to meet another for a late night rendezvous. However, it is a powerful poem, as much for what it leaves out as for what it includes within its delimited scope. It utilizes the following rhyme scheme: ABCCBA DEFFED.

The poem begins as the speaker describes the scene, presumably from within the boat they are rowing. They mention the sea and “long black land,” and the large yellow moon in the sky. The light from the moon makes the waves leap up like “fiery ringlets” from their sleep. The notion that the waves have been awakened emphasizes the late-night, secretive nature of the action: the reader already knows, from the mention of the moon, that the poem takes place at night. Nevertheless, here, the imagery emphasizes the feeling that the action of the poem is taking place at a strange time: when even nature itself should be asleep. This helps create a sense of urgency and an air of secrecy.

The speaker describes how they have reached a cove – a small, sheltered inlet – suitable for pulling their boat ashore. Not surprisingly, the next line describes how the narrator has “quenched the speed” of their boat in the sand. Browning's phrase “quench the speed” is rich in implication: the boat was moving quickly; the word “quench” distinctly suggests an urge or desire satisfied, like a deep drink after being thirsty. These details build upon and hone the sense of urgency expressed in the first lines, and add a bodily sensuality to the atmosphere, even though the details themselves appear to be concerned with the speaker's environment.



In the second and final stanza, the speaker notes the stretches of land they must cross: a mile of “warm sea-scented beach,” which implies that the poem takes place in spring or summer, followed by “three fields to cross” before they reach a farmhouse. Then the poem moves abruptly to the description of a tapped windowpane, and, in response, a matchstick being struck inside the house. A quiet voice is heard, although no quotations are given. The voice is described as being less loud than the beating of the two hearts of the reunited couple.

The final stanza's cascade of concrete images takes the form of a series of snapshots – beach, fields, farmhouse, window, match, clasped lovers. The quick succession of the images gives a sense of speed to the action. The final line, with its implied embrace, “hearts beating each to each,” re-contextualizes the urgency of the travel that has been depicted up until that point: the poem is about someone traveling through the night to meet a lover. The conventions of the day would suggest that the narrator was a man traveling to meet his female lover – but that Browning so carefully avoids any gendered language is telling. His emphasis, it seems, is on the feelings of the lovers, rather than their exact identities; their near-desperate desire to be close to one another, rather than their exact social context. That their meeting takes place at night – an important aspect of the poem, given its title – suggests that there is something illicit or unpopular about their union (e.g. the “joys and fears” of the voice of the figure within the house, after lighting the match and recognizing the visitor). However, Browning leaves that, too, unnamed. In fact, there is nothing within the poem that makes clear that the meeting is between lovers. Nevertheless, many aspects of the poem seem to point in this direction, including its distinctly sensual natural imagery. In the end, however, it is the fruitful ambiguity of the poem – the many things it leaves unsaid, but richly implied – that makes “Meeting in the Night” one of Browning's most memorable, and accessible, works. It is popularly believed that Browning's inspiration for the poem was his courtship of his future wife, fellow poet Elizabeth Barrett.