Love Among the Ruins (poem)

Love Among the Ruins (poem)

"Love Among the Ruins" is an 1855 poem by Robert Browning. It was included in his collection "Men and Women", published that year. It is the first poem in the book.

Below is the first stanza:

"Where the quiet-coloured end of evening smiles,
"Miles and miles
"On the solitary pastures where our sheep
"Half-asleep
"Tinkle homeward thro' the twilight, stray or stop
"As they crop---
"Was the site once of a city great and gay,
"(So they say)
"Of our country's very capital, its prince
"Ages since
"Held his court in, gathered councils, wielding far
"Peace or war."

Browning here employs an unusual structure of rhyming couplets in which long iambic lines are paired with short lines of three syllables. This may be related to the theme of the poem, a comparison between love and material glory. The speaker, overlooking a pasture where sheep graze, recalls that once a great ancient city, his country's capital, stood there. After spending four stanzas describing the beauty and grandeur of the ancient city, the speaker says that "a girl with eager eyes and yellow hair/Waits me there", and that "she looks now, breathless, dumb/Till I come." The speaker, after musing further on the glory of the city and thinking of how he will greet his lover, closes by rejecting the majesty of the old capital and preferring instead his love:

"Oh heart! oh blood that freezes, blood that burns!
"Earth's returns
"For whole centuries of folly, noise and sin!
"Shut them in,
"With their triumphs and their glories and the rest!
"Love is best.

In culture

Browning's poem inspired or gave its title to many subsequent works, including a painting by Edward Burne-Jones, a 1975 TV-movie with Katharine Hepburn and Laurence Olivier, and an album and song by the band 10,000 Maniacs.

The poem is also quoted by the character Rupert Birkin in Women in Love, a novel by D. H. Lawrence.

References and external links

* [http://books.google.com/books?id=etcIAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA1&dq=browning+love+among+the+ruins+men+and+women Original text] from an 1856 edition of "Men and Women"
* [http://www.cs.rice.edu/~ssiyer/minstrels/poems/1273.html Text] of the poem, with analysis
* [http://www.teachit.co.uk/attachments/6127.pdf Analysis]


Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.

Игры ⚽ Нужно сделать НИР?

Look at other dictionaries:

  • Love Among the Ruins (poem) — Love Among the Ruins Love among the Ruins, tableau de Edward Burne Jones Love Among the Ruins (« Amour parmi les ruines ») est le premier poème écrit par Robert Browning dans sa série de poèmes Hommes et femmes, publiée en 1855 …   Wikipédia en Français

  • Love Among the Ruins — can be any of the following:Literature* Love Among the Ruins (poem), am 1855 poem by Robert Browning * Love Among the Ruins (Warwick Deeping), a 1904 novel by Warwick Deeping * Love Among the Ruins (Angela Thirkell), a 1948 novel by Angela… …   Wikipedia

  • The Children of Húrin —   …   Wikipedia

  • The Greed of Man — (Traditional Chinese: 大時代, Great Era ) was a Drama Series that was broadcast by TVB in Hong Kong during 1993. It is extremely controversial for its depiction of violence and is well remembered for its effects of the stock market in general, known …   Wikipedia

  • Culture of the United Kingdom — The Proms is an eight week summer season of daily orchestral classical music concerts, on the last night with some traditional patriotic music of the United Kingdom.[1][2] …   Wikipedia

  • List of audiovisual entertainment affected by the September 11 attacks — The September 11, 2001, attacks had an important impact on the audiovisual entertainment business, not just in terms of television coverage.Television coverageTelevision coverage of the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, and their aftermath …   Wikipedia

  • List of characters in the Age of Mythology series — The following is a list of characters found in the campaigns of Age of Mythology (Fall of the Trident) and Age of Mythology: The Titans (The New Atlantis): Contents 1 Characters from both campaigns 1.1 Arkantos 1.2 Ajax …   Wikipedia

  • Kannada literature in the Vijayanagara Empire — refers to the body of literature composed in the Kannada language of South India during the ascendancy of the Vijayanagar Empire which lasted from the 14th through the 16th century. The Vijayanagara empire was established in 1336 by Harihara I… …   Wikipedia

  • Conan the Barbarian (1982 film) — Conan the Barbarian …   Wikipedia

  • Der Ring des Nibelungen: Composition of the poem — Richard Wagner The evolution of Richard Wagner s operatic tetralogy The Ring of the Nibelung was a long and tortuous process, and the precise sequence of events which led the composer to embark upon such a vast undertaking is still unclear. The… …   Wikipedia

Share the article and excerpts

Direct link
Do a right-click on the link above
and select “Copy Link”