am I deified/ Who knows but the world may end to- night?"  The speaker revels in the moment. It might be a consolation. Yet, the speaker believes that this moment is what transcends the traditional understanding of "success" and "failure."  The speaker addresses this later in the poem: "Fail I alone, in words and deeds?/ Why, all men strive and who succeeds?" The speaker is open about the fact that failure and success are external constructs, determined by a measurement that exists outside the subjective.  Yet, the speaker is convinced that this love resides in his own sense of identity. The act of riding together one last time is about his love.  It is not defined as anything else.  Since it is his, there is no need to console himself about the issue of failure.  His love is his to possess.  It's not anyone else's right, including hers, to determine success or failure.

This affirmation of the subjective is continued throughout the poem.  The ride itself defines success, a condition of transcendence within the mind of the individual:  "We rode; it seem'd my spirit flew,/Saw other regions, cities new,/As the world rush'd by on either side./I thought,--All labour, yet no less/ Bear up beneath their unsuccess./Look at the end of work, contrast/ The petty done, the undone vast,/ This present of theirs with the hopeful past!/ I hoped she would love me; here we ride."  The speaker equates the experience of the ride as moving beyond "success" or "failure."  The speaker would view such terms as temporal.  What the speaker is able to experience with a "spirit" that "flew" and seeing "cities new," is something transcendent.  This experience that goes beyond "unsuccess" associated with "labor" is where the speaker affirms his own subjectivity.  There is no need to suggest consolation in the face of such a transformation.  In this light, the speaker would suggest that the "instant made eternity."  This is something beyond "success" and "failure."  Upon the conclusion of the poem, the speaker has gone past that which is "failure" and even the need to be consoled because of it.

Browning once wrote, "Take away love and our earth is a tomb."  This affirmation of the experience in love is one that revels in the instant.  The experience of love is one where instant and eternity converge.  For the speaker of the poem, being able to experience one last ride together is where success lies.  It permanently enshrines love in the speaker's mind, able to live forever, and "Ride, ride together, for ever ride".  This is where the speaker turns in the face of external judgments regarding failure.

The lover/speaker has lost his beloved but intends to make the most of this one last ride together. He then goes forward with a series of justifications to show how his love and this one last ride are worthwhile. In the fifth stanza, the speaker notes that his experience riding with his beloved is better than the statesman's legacy which is merely ten lines upon a gravestone or history book. His last ride is also better than the soldier's legacy which amounts to a short life with a significant but brief monument/grave. In the next stanza, the speaker admits the poet's art is significant ("'Tis something; nay, tis' much"). However, he prefers his actual experience to the poet's rhymes. In the next stanza, the speaker adds that the sculptor makes himself a slave to his art while he (speaker) is at least a slave to a real, living "Venus" who "fords" (rides) over the "burn" (creek): 

And you, great sculptor--so, you gave
A score of years to Art, her slave,
And that's your Venus, whence we turn
To yonder girl that fords the burn! 

Again, the speaker notes that his riding experience is better than the musician's notes because music goes out of fashion. In the end, the speaker considers how heavenly it would be if this ride would last forever. In each case, the speaker seeks to justify (to the reader and to himself) that this one last ride holds as great, if not greater, significance as other passionate pursuits.