A Woman'S Last Word

Let's contend no more, Love, Strive nor weep: All be as before, Love, --Only sleep!

What so wild as words are? I and thou In debate, as birds are, Hawk on bough!

See the creature stalking While we speak! Hush and hide the talking, Cheek on cheek.

What so false as truth is, False to thee? Where the serpent's tooth is, Shun the tree--

Where the apple reddens, Never pry-- Lest we lose our Edens, Eve and I.

Be a god and hold me With a charm! Be a man and fold me With thine arm!

Teach me, only teach, Love! As I ought I will speak thy speech, Love, Think thy thought--

Meet, if thou require it, Both demands Laying flesh and spirit In thy hands.

That shall be to-morrow, Not to-night: I must bury sorrow Out of sight:

--Must a little weep, Love, (Foolish me!) And so fall asleep, Love, Loved by thee.

In this poem a most delicate relation between two human beings is interpreted. Short though it is, it yet goes deeper into motives, concentrates attention more energetically upon one point of view, and is possibly more impressive than if the theme had been unfolded in a play or novel. It turns the listener or reader within himself, and he feels in his own breast the response to her words.

All great art discharges its function by evoking imagination and feeling, but it is not always the intellectual meaning which first appears.

However far apart these two poems may be in spirit or subject, there are certain characteristics common to them; they are both monologues.

The monologue, as Browning has exemplified it, is one end of a conversation. A definite speaker is conceived in a definite, dramatic situation. Usually we find also a well-defined listener, though his character is understood entirely from the impression he produces upon the speaker. We feel that this listener has said something and that his presence and character influence the speaker's thought, words, and manner. The conversation does not consist of abstract remarks, but takes place in a definite situation as a part of human life.

We must realize the situation, the speaker, the hearer, before the meaning can become clear; and it is the failure to do this which has caused many to find Browning obscure.

For example, observe Browning's "Confessions."