This is a poem of five stanzas consisting of quatrains with a regular abab rhyme scheme that adds structure and rhythm to the work. It shows the conflicted emotional state of a lover who is struggling with his beloved's desire to move to friendship.
In this poem, the speaker addresses his absent beloved. This address of an "offstage" person or thing is a literary device called apostrophe. Through his address to his beloved, we learn that the beloved has ended the love relationship. Now they will just be friends, a situation the speaker accepts but with bitterness.
Imagery helps reveal the bleak mood of the rejected speaker. He speaks of the "red" of the leaf buds on the beloved's cottage vine turning "grey," just as his mood has turned from the gaiety of the color red to a grayer, more somber tone.
The poem is lyrical, meaning it is about...
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the emotional state of the speaker. He shows his emotion through his use of exclamation points. For instance, he uses an exclamation point in the first stanza as he exclaims that he hears
the sparrows’ good-night twitter
About your cottage eaves!
Tomorrow we meet the same then, dearest?The speaker uses the imagery of hands as a synecdoche for their relationship: in synecdoche, the part stands for the whole. Holding the beloved's hand becomes the measure of the whole relationship. The speaker ends the poem on a note of defiance, stating,
May I take your hand in mine?
I will hold your hand but as long as all may,In other words, he will continue to push the boundaries of the relationship: he is not resigned to the change.
Or so very little longer!
Provide a critical analysis of Robert Browning's poem "The Lost Mistress."
Browning's "The Lost Mistress" is a dramatic monologue in which the speaker addresses his beloved. As the poem begins, she has broken off the love relationship, telling him she only wants to be friends. He accepts the situation with bitter resignation, opening the poem by saying to her, "All’s over, then." He asks if this truth sounds bitter but then realizes what he's hearing is the sparrows' "good-night twitter," suggesting the twilit end of the relationship.
In stanza 2, the speaker is outside the beloved's cottage, symbolizing his situation as outcast from the love relationship he desires with her. Here he notes that the leaf buds on the cottage's vines are ready to burst into full bloom, but he notes bitterly that red blooms turn to gray, just the way his relationship has aged and ended.
The bitter tone continues in stanza 3, in which the speaker ambiguously calls his mistress "dearest" (is he mocking or sincere?) and accepts that they are just "friends." He repeats the word friends as if to lodge the fact in his mind. Despite this, he states in stanza 4 that her voice will stay in his soul forever, indicating he still loves her.
Finally, he ends on an ambiguous note that implies either love or possession. He says he will hold her hand as a friend or if he can a "very little longer," suggesting he is going to continue to push for a closer relationship.
The poem uses the image of holding hands as a metaphor for friendship and the image of being outside his beloved's cottage as metaphor for being exiled from her love. The poem creates a pleasing sense of rhythm by employing a regular abab rhyme scheme and conveys emotion through the use of exclamation points.
The lover's situation is a universal one, in which he wants more from the relationship than the other person is willing to give.