Buchara state university m. Bakoeva, E. Muratova, M. Ochilova english literature

Robert Browning 
(1812-1889)
Elizabeth Barrett-Brown ing 
(1806-1861)

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(1806-186!), a semi-inval id who was six years older than Robert 
Browning. He fell in love with her poems and then with the poet 
herself. Despite her father’s disapproval, Robert and Elizabeth 
eloped in 1846. They lived a happy life together in Italy and it 
revived Mrs. Browning. There, for several years, Elizabeth 
Barrett-Browning wrote a series o f sonnets expressing her love 
for her husband. Her sennet “How Do I Love Thee 
addressed 
to Robert Browning is the most-quoted love poem in the English 
language.
How Do I Love Thee
How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height 
My soul can reach, when feeling out o f sight 
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.
I love thee to the level ofeveryday’s,
Most quiet need, by sun and candle light.
I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;
I love thee purely, as they turn from F'raise.
I love thee with the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood’s faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose 
With my lost saints - 1 love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life! - and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.
During their life together Elizabeth remained much more fa­
mous than her husband.
After his wife’s death in 1861, Robert Browning returned to 
England with their son. It was only then, in his fifties, that Brown­
ing established his own reputation as a poet with the collections 
of dramatic monologues such as “Dramatis Personae” (1866), 
and “The Ring and the Book” (1869). Now Browning became 
famous and Tennyson’s equal among Victorian readers. But these 
two great poets were absolutely different in their manner of writing 
and behaviour. The biographers and critics write that Tennyson

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was introverted, withdrawn, and often melancholy Browning was 
open, social, and optimistic. Tennyson’s poetry is melodic and 
beautifully polished; Browning’s is intentionally harsh and 
“unpoetic”, and reflects the language o f lively conversation.
Browning has generally been called a difficult writer, so much 
that societies were formed to interpret his poetry. But sometimes 
he wrote simply, when he thought it consistent with his subject. 
One ofhis such not-too-difficult-to understand lyricai poems is 
“The Lost Mistress”.
The Lost Mistress
1
All’s over, then - does truth sound bitter 
As one at first believes?
Hark, ‘tis the sparrows’ good-night twitter 
About your cottage eaves!
2
And the leaf-buds on the vine are woolly,
I noticed that, to-day;
One day more bursts them open fully
- You know the red turns gray.
3
To-morrow we meet the same then, dearest?
May 1 take your hand in mine?
Mere friends are we, - well, friends the merest 
Keep much that I’ll resign:
4
For each glance of that eye so bright and black,
Though I keep with heart’s endeavour, - 
Your voice, when you wish the snowdrops back,
Though it stays in my soul for ever! -
5
- Yet I will but say what mere friends say 
Or only a thought stronger;
I will hold your hand but as long as all may,
Or so very little longer.

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This poem belongs to the collection o f short poems called 
“Dramatic Romances and Lyrics” (1845).
Browning’s best-known work is ‘T h e Ring and the Book” 
(1868-1869). He based the poem on an Italian murder case o f 
1698. Twelve characters discuss the case, and each does it from 
his or her own point of view.
Browning strikes our contemporary readers as the more mod­
em poet, because ofhis colloquial and quirky diction, and because 
ofhis interest in human psychology.
Charles Dickens