"Prospice" by Robert Browning

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From the book Light from Many Lamps by Lillian Eichler Watson (1951):

All through the long, long night he sat by the bedside, holding her hand. Sometimes she whispered his name, and he bent close to listen, Always it was some word of hope or cheer, or a gentle smile. Then she would doze again; and he would watch, and pray.

Robert Browning had brought his wife to Italy, hoping a change of scene and climate would improve her health. And she had improved, so much that he had established a home for her in Florence. Here they had spent their happiest years. Here they had lived as in a dream, thinking as one and feeling as one, planning and writing their poetry. Here they had lived a life of rich contentment.

Until now… Now he knew the idyl was over, the dream was spent. Elizabeth was dying. Though every fiber of him cried denial, he knew the end was near. The doctor had told him what his heart already knew.

He thought of the closing lines of one of her poems, lines he had always loved….

      I love thee with the breath,

Smiles, tears, of all my life!—and, if God choose,

I shall but love thee better after death!

 ...The first wan light of the new day was just beginning to come through the window when she sighed and said, “It is beautiful!” Then, suddenly, she was gone.

Robert Browning was grief-stricken by his wife’s death. For some time he couldn’t write; but when at last he did, there flowed from his pen a passionate defiance of death, an exultant challenge.

Prospice

By Robert Browning

Fear death?--to feel the fog in my throat,

      The mist in my face,

When the snows begin, and the blasts denote

      I am nearing the place,

The power of the night, the press of the storm,

      The post of the foe;

Where he stands, the Arch Fear in a visible form,

      Yet the strong man must go:

For the journey is done and the summit attained,

      And the barriers fall,

Though a battle's to fight ere a guerdon be gained,

      The reward of it all.

I was ever a fighter, so--one fight more.

      The best and the last!

I would hate that death bandaged my eyes, and forebore,

      And bade me creep past.

No! let me taste the whole of it, fare like my peers

      The heroes of old,

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 minute's at end.

And the elements' rage, the fiend-voices that rave

      Shall dwindle, shall blend,

Shall change, shall become first a peace out of pain,

      Then a light, then thy breast,

O thou soul of my soul! I shall clasp thee again,

      And with God be the rest!

Elizabeth Barrett Browning died in June, 1861. It was in the autumn of the same years that Robert Browning, out of the depths of his grief and loneliness, wrote “Prospice” [Look Forward], one of his most famous and inspiring poems.