Meeting At Night Summary
Browning’s “Meeting at Night” is a brief poem about a lover’s desperate struggle to meet his beloved and his reunion with her. The entire poem has a sense of movement to it that reflects the speaker's desire to reunite with his love.
The speaker is at sea at night, heading towards the black land in the distance. He briefly gives an image of the night at sea instead of describing it. The three lines in the first stanza beginning with "And," suggest the speaker's urge to meet his beloved.
The speaker is uninterested in the beauty of "the yellow half-moon large and low." Instead, his focus is on bypassing such elements so as to meet her. He moves forward until he pulls his vessel up onto the sand. He walks a mile along the beach and then crosses three fields to approach his goal, a farm. He taps at the window, sees the lighting of a match, and then is overwhelmed by the beating of his and his lover's hearts as they reunite.
Due to the excitement and fear, their heartbeat is louder than their voice. Here the poem ends abruptly maybe we can believe that once he has attained his happiness, he has no further need for writing.