Analysis of By The Fire-Side

Robert Browning 1812 (Camberwell) – 1889 (Venice)



How well I know what I mean to do
  When the long dark autumn-evenings come:
And where, my soul, is thy pleasant hue?
  With the music of all thy voices, dumb
In life's November too!

I shall be found by the fire, suppose,
  O'er a great wise book as beseemeth age,
While the shutters flap as the cross-wind blows
  And I turn the page, and I turn the page,
Not verse now, only prose!

Till the young ones whisper, finger on lip,
  ``There he is at it, deep in Greek:
``Now then, or never, out we slip
  ``To cut from the hazels by the creek
``A mainmast for our ship!''

I shall be at it indeed, my friends:
  Greek puts already on either side
Such a branch-work forth as soon extends
  To a vista opening far and wide,
And I pass out where it ends.

The outside-frame, like your hazel-trees:
  But the inside-archway widens fast,
And a rarer sort succeeds to these,
  And we slope to Italy at last
And youth, by green degrees.

I follow wherever I am led,
  Knowing so well the leader's hand:
Oh woman-country, wooed not wed,
  Loved all the more by earth's male-lands,
Laid to their hearts instead!

Look at the ruined chapel again
  Half-way up in the Alpine gorge!
Is that a tower, I point you plain,
  Or is it a mill, or an iron-forge
Breaks solitude in vain?

A turn, and we stand in the heart of things:
  The woods are round us, heaped and dim;
From slab to slab how it slips and springs,
  The thread of water single and slim,
Through the ravage some torrent brings!

Does it feed the little lake below?
  That speck of white just on its marge
Is Pella; see, in the evening-glow,
  How sharp the silver spear-heads charge
When Alp meets heaven in snow!

On our other side is the straight-up rock;
  And a path is kept 'twixt the gorge and it
By boulder-stones where lichens mock
  The marks on a moth, and small ferns fit
Their teeth to the polished block.

Oh the sense of the yellow mountain-flowers,
  And thorny balls, each three in one,
The chestnuts throw on our path in showers!
  For the drop of the woodland fruit's begun,
These early November hours,

That crimson the creeper's leaf across
  Like a splash of blood, intense, abrupt,
O'er a shield else gold from rim to boss,
  And lay it for show on the fairy-cupped
Elf-needled mat of moss,

By the rose-flesh mushrooms, undivulged
  Last evening---nay, in to-day's first dew
Yon sudden coral nipple bulged,
  Where a freaked fawn-coloured flaky crew
Of toadstools peep indulged.

And yonder, at foot of the fronting ridge
  That takes the turn to a range beyond,
Is the chapel reached by the one-arched bridge
  Where the water is stopped in a stagnant pond
Danced over by the midge.

The chapel and bridge are of stone alike,
  Blackish-grey and mostly wet;
Cut hemp-stalks steep in the narrow dyke.
  See here again, how the lichens fret
And the roots of the ivy strike!

Poor little place, where its one priest comes
  On a festa-day, if he comes at all,
To the dozen folk from their scattered homes,
  Gathered within that precinct small
By the dozen ways one roams---

To drop from the charcoal-burners' huts,
  Or climb from the hemp-dressers' low shed,
Leave the grange where the woodman stores his nuts,
  Or the wattled cote where the fowlers spread
Their gear on the rock's bare juts.

It has some pretension too, this front,
  With its bit of fresco half-moon-wise
Set over the porch, Art's early wont:
  'Tis John in the Desert, I surmise,
But has borne the weather's brunt---

Not from the fault of the builder, though,
  For a pent-house properly projects
Where three carved beams make a certain show,
  Dating---good thought of our architect's---
'Five, six, nine, he lets you know.

And all day long a bird sings there,
  And a stray sheep drinks at the pond at times;
The place is silent and aware;
  It has had its scenes, its joys and crimes,
But that is its own affair.

My perfect wife, my Leonor,
  Oh heart, my own, oh eyes, mine too,
Whom else could I dare look backward for,
  With whom beside should I dare pursue
The path grey heads


Scheme ABABA CDCDC EFEFE GHGHG IJIJI KXKXK XLMLM NONON PQPQP RSRSR TUTUT VXXAV AAWAW XYXYX Z1 Z1 Z X2 3 2 3 4 K4 K4 5 6 X6 5 P7 P7 P 8 9 8 9 8 8 AXAX
Poetic Form
Metre 111111111 101110101 011111101 1010111101 010101 1111101001 100111111 1010110111 0110101101 111101 1011101011 11111101 11110111 11101101 011101 111110111 110101101 101111101 1010100101 0111111 011111101 10011101 001010111 011110011 011101 110010111 10110101 11010111 11011111 111101 110101001 1110011 110101111 1110111101 11001 0101100111 01111101 111111101 011101001 10101101 111010101 11111111 110100101 11010111 1111001 11010110111 0011110101 11011101 011010111 1110101 10110101010 01011101 01011101010 101101101 11001010 11001101 101110101 1001111111 0111110101 110111 1011101 110101111 11010101 101110101 11101 0101110101 110110101 1010110111 10101100101 110101 0100111101 110101 111100101 110110101 00110101 110111111 1010111111 1010111101 1001111 1010111 11101101 111011011 1011010111 101011011 1110111 111010111 111110111 110011101 110010101 1110101 110110101 101110010 111110101 101111010 1111111 01110111 0011110111 01110001 111111101 1111101 101111 11111111 111111101 110111101 0111
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 4,004
Words 742
Sentences 43
Stanzas 21
Stanza Lengths 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5
Lines Amount 105
Letters per line (avg) 29
Words per line (avg) 7
Letters per stanza (avg) 144
Words per stanza (avg) 34
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on April 22, 2023

3:46 min read
253

Robert Browning

Robert Browning was the father of poet Robert Browning. more…

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