Analysis of The Lost Mistress

Robert Browning 1812 (Camberwell) – 1889 (Venice)



All's over, then: does truth sound bitter
  As one at first believes?
Hark, 'tis the sparrows' good-night twitter
  About your cottage eaves!

And the leaf-buds on the vine are woolly,
  I noticed that, to-day;
One day more bursts them open fully
  ---You know the red turns grey.

To-morrow we meet the same then, dearest?
  May I take your hand in mine?
Mere friends are we,---well, friends the merest
  Keep much that I resign:

For each glance of the eye so bright and black,
  Though I keep with heart's endeavour,---
Your voice, when you wish the snowdrops back,
  Though it stay in my soul for ever!---

Yet I will but say what mere friends say,
  Or only a thought stronger;
I will hold your hand but as long as all may,
  Or so very little longer!


Scheme ABAB CDCD EFEF GAGA DADA
Poetic Form Quatrain 
Metre 110111110 111101 110101110 011101 0011101110 110111 111111010 110111 1101101110 1111101 111111010 111101 1111011101 11111010 11111011 111011110 111111111 1100110 11111111111 11101010
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 760
Words 145
Sentences 13
Stanzas 5
Stanza Lengths 4, 4, 4, 4, 4
Lines Amount 20
Letters per line (avg) 28
Words per line (avg) 7
Letters per stanza (avg) 111
Words per stanza (avg) 27
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on April 25, 2023

44 sec read
236

Robert Browning

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

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