❐ Write a short critical estimate of the poem The Last Ride Together.
Or
❐ Consider The Last Ride Together as the representative poem of Browning.
Ans. :- The Last Ride Together is a dramatic monologue. The particular situation is all important here. The emphasis is laid here on the portrayal of the inner world of the soul, where nothing is of importance until it is transfused into a form influencing mind and character. The lover has passed his youth in loving his lady-love only. But all on a sudden he is rejected by his love. The poet promptly seizes upon this tense situation of the rejection and disillusionment of the lover. The lover speaks in his own person. The situation reveals the state of the mind of the lover who has suffered disillusionment but who does not give up hope.
The poem is dramatic as well as metaphysical. Here we have the glimpses of the Browningian philosophy of love and failure. 'Love does not mean to Browning a gross sensual appetite as it does to Byron; it does not mean even the rich sensuousness of the Cavalier poets or even the fine intoxication of the romantic Keats; it does not mean an undefined reflection, of the Platonic ideal as it means to Shelley.' Love, to the poet, is a great force which transmutes and etherealises. It has nothing of the carnal in it. It belongs as much to the body as to the soul. In regard to the philosophy of failure, the poet says that failure here means success in life hereafter. Real happiness lies in pursuit and not in attainment. Life is a continuous struggle to reach goals in life and this struggle continues in the next life too.
Nature in the poem plays an important role. It is a fitting background to human emotions. The lover in the poem feels a divine joy in the company of his lady-love :
'Hush ! if you saw some western cloud
All billowy-bosomed, over-bowed
By many benedictions- sun's
And moon's and evening-star's at once -
And so, you, looking and loving best,
Conscious grew, your passion drew
Cloud, sunset, moonrise, star-shine too,
Down on you, near and yet more near,
Till flesh must fade for heaven was here !-
The poem is free from the charge of obscurity as is generally levelled against Browning's poems. Its style is simple and has a sustained elevation. "The rhythmic beat of the verse is a fitting accompaniment to the movement, thought and mood of the poem."