Escape me?
Never—
Beloved!
While I am I, and you are you,
So long as the world contains us both,
Me the loving and you the loth,
While the one eludes, must the other pursue.
My life is a fault at last, I fear—
It seems too much like a fate, indeed!
Though I do my best I shall scarce succeed—
But what if I fail of my purpose here?
It is but to keep the nerves at strain,
To dry one's eyes and laugh at a fall,
And baffled, get up to begin again,—
So the chase takes up one's life, that's all.
While, look but once from your farthest bound,
At me so deep in the dust and dark,
No sooner the old hope drops to ground
Than a new one, straight to the selfsame mark,
I shape me—
Ever
Removed!
Robert Browning
Notes on "Life in a love"
Robert Browning (1812-1889) was not a love poet as such. For the most part, he wrote historical and narrative poems and various experimental poetry in the form of dramatic monologues. His
romantic courtship and secret marriage to Elizabeth Barrett Browning
made him a celebrated figure of romantic love poetry however. This poem, Life in a love, was part of Men and
Women, a book of 51 poems written in Italy and published in 1855, after he had married Elizabeth Barrett. The book
helped to repair his reputation, which had been suffered at the hands of critics in 1840 when he published Sordello.
This poem is possibly a pair with "Love in a Life" from the same book.
Robert Browning (1812-1889) was a prolific poet of the victorian age. He did not achieve fame, however, until relatively late in life. His unconventional style and experimentation tended to confuse Victorian readers. His fascination with horror tales is in some ways reminiscent of Edgar Allan Poe.
He is perhaps most famous today for his marriage to Elizabeth Barrett. He published a volume that included love poems, Men and Women, in 1855. Some of these poems were later recognized as masterpieces. His 20,000 line The Ring and the Book published in 1868 and 1869, was evidently inspired by Elizabeth Barrett, and achieved the fame that had eluded him earlier.
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