Review on "prospice" by Robert Browning

Review on "Prospice" by Robert Browning

‘Prospice' means ‘look forward' which was written shortly after the death of Mrs. Browning expressing the poet's profound faith in personal immortality. The poet wanders what it is like to fear death when it is drawing near. To feel the fog in his throat and the mist in his face. When the snow begins and the blast denotes that he is nearing the place. The power of the night, the press of the storm, the post of the foe where he stands and the Arch Tear in a visible form for yet the strong man must go; for the long journey of life is done and the summit attained. The barriers fall though a battle to fight before the guerdon is gained the reward of it all.

The poet considers himself to ever be a fighter so for one more fight of the best and the last. He definitely hates the fact that death would bandage his eyes and forbore and bade him creep past. Yet he dares to taste the whole of death fare like his peers and the heroes of old. He prefers to bear the brunt in a minute pay glad life's arrears of pain darkness and cold. For sudden, the worst turns the best to the brave, the black minutes at end and the elements rage. The fiend voices that rave shall dwindle, shall blend, shall charge and shall become first a peace out of pain. Then a light and then her breast; she is the soul of his soul. Browning felt certain that he would be united with his wife in eternity. He shall clasp her again and with God be the rest of eternity.

Notes

1] Written in the autumn of 1861, a few months after Mrs. Browning's death. First published in the Atlantic

Monthly of June 1864; also in Men and Women, 1864.

Prospice: the Latin imperative of prospicio -- look forward, look ahead.

2] The Arch Fear: Death.

3] bandaged: a reference to the practice of bandaging the eyes of those who are to be executed by shooting.

4] arrears: Browning implies that he has had less of "pain, darkness, and cold" than most people have.

Written in the autumn of 1861, a few months after Mrs. Browning's death. First published in the Atlantic Monthly of June 1864; also in Men and Women, 1864.

Prospice: the Latin imperative of prospicio -- look forward, look ahead.

The Arch Fear: Death.

bandaged: a reference to the practice of bandaging the eyes of those who are to be executed by shooting.

arrears: Browning implies that he has had less of "pain, darkness, and cold" than most people have.

:. this poem is about the death of his wife and how he haas to be strong and face up to it and keep living his life as the poem says.. yet the strong must go. i also think that this thing we must do is stupid