Poem Summary : The Last Ride Together

 The Last Ride Together

     Robert Browning (1812-1889)

                         The poem 'The Last Ride Together' was published in the first volume of 'Men and Women' in the year 1855 it is a fine example of dramatic monologue, the form in which Browning was specialised. In the poem Browning the poet and Philosopher joins hand with Browning the psychologist. It is the theory of fatalism which finds a fine expression through Browning's robust optimism. 

                           The poem is about unrequited love - The rejected lover takes the rejection as a decree of fate and therefore finds success in the faliure of love. The poem undoubtedly reveals to us the psychology of the lover who is now caught in the net of hope and fear - whether his proposal of a ride with her for the last time will be granted or not and then gradually, with almost dramatic intensity presents how failure in love can be converted into a thought of success.

"Who knows but the world may end to-night"

It is the psychology that has been highlighted in these lines of the poem 'The Last Ride Together'. Love uplifts a man into a God that is emphasized here. Love not only belives in platonic ideas, it has it's link with physical union. The lover enjoyed the bliss of love so far but the moment he was rejected, the thought of separation becomes heavy on him,  and though he has not started to whine and whimper like other sentimental lovers, he, with his last hope has given a proposal of last ride to the lady and the moment the lady has accepted the last proposal, his mind is refilled and over enjoyed with the thought of enjoying the bliss of love once more and he will become like the God who has every power to command the object of his love.

"Fail I alone, in words and deeds"

The lover interrogates whether failure is the experience of some selected few or is common in man. One promises but hardly he is able to keep his or her words. Again one plans but hardly he can convert it in two action. Therefore if we look at the end of any work, we shall find failure is common in our experiences. The lover consoles his heart, at that moment when he is in the mood but accept the rejection in love positively, with the thought that it is not only he who has faced failure in love and there by in life rather he is in a better condition than those who inspite of there whole hearted dedication to their service has to come out as a bitter harvest of failure.

"Who knows what's fit for us?"

No body in this world see the end of the work. In similarly one is not able to decide what is good for him. Whether it is good for one to attain everything what he accepts, the poet has doubt. Because when one attains that what he expects he may be a success in terms of these life but will be a failure, as having nothing to expect in the life to come. So what the lover believes it is far better to live life with the hope and expectation of attainment and to die with the thought that he has much to attained in the life to come.

"Changed not in kind... Eternity"

 Eternity is the time endless and instant is the moment made significant. The moment the lover is experience in the bliss of ride with the lady whom he love so deeply, though it is the last experience of such kind, it is made significant. The lover knows, with every moment onward he is taking near to that time when he has to be parted from his beloved woman forever but still he is with that hope that the moment will never come to an end when he is enjoying heavenly bliss of riding together on this earth.

 The lover knows the moment when the lady love will depart him, that will bring to an end of his life and his life will become meaningless. The lover has understood his mind and the situation. But it is his optimism that has enable him to find a way to overcome the darkness and he knows his failure in love here means victory in heaven.