“Confessions” Summary

“Confessions” Themes

• 

  Love, Memory, and Consolation

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• 

  The Thrill of Forbidden Love

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Line-by-Line Explanation & Analysis of “Confessions”

• Lines 1-4

  What is he buzzing in my ears?
  "Now that I come to die,
  Do I view the world as a vale of tears?"
  Ah, reverend sir, not I!

  

  

  

  

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• Lines 5-11

  What I viewed there once, what I view again
  Where the physic bottles stand
  On the table's edge,—is a suburb lane,
  With a wall to my bedside hand.
  That lane sloped, much as the bottles do,
  From a house you could descry
  O'er the garden-wall;

  

  

  

  

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• Lines 11-16

  is the curtain blue
  Or green to a healthy eye?
  To mine, it serves for the old June weather
  Blue above lane and wall;
  And that farthest bottle labelled "Ether"
  Is the house o'ertopping all.

  

  

  

  

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• Lines 17-20

  At a terrace, somewhere near the stopper,
  There watched for me, one June,
  A girl: I know, sir, it's improper,
  My poor mind's out of tune.

  

  

  

  

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• Lines 21-24

  Only, there was a way... you crept
  Close by the side, to dodge
  Eyes in the house, two eyes except:
  They styled their house "The Lodge."

  

  

  

  

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• Lines 25-32

  What right had a lounger up their lane?
  But, by creeping very close,
  With the good wall's help,—their eyes might strain
  And stretch themselves to Oes,
  Yet never catch her and me together,
  As she left the attic, there,
  By the rim of the bottle labelled "Ether,"
  And stole from stair to stair,

  

  

  

  

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• Lines 33-36

  And stood by the rose-wreathed gate. Alas,
  We loved, sir—used to meet:
  How sad and bad and mad it was—
  But then, how it was sweet!

  

  

  

  

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“Confessions” Symbols

• 

  Going Uphill

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“Confessions” Poetic Devices & Figurative Language

• Imagery

  

  

  

  

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• Repetition

  

  

  

  

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• Pun

  

  

  

  

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• Synecdoche

  

  

  

  

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• Allusion

  

  

  

  

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“Confessions” Vocabulary

Select any word below to get its definition in the context of the poem. The words are listed in the order in which they appear in the poem.

• Reverend
• Physic bottles
• Descry
• O'er
• Ether
• O'ertopping
• Terrace
• Styled
• Stretch themselves to Oes
• Stole
• Mad

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Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme of “Confessions”

• Form

• Meter

• Rhyme Scheme

“Confessions” Speaker

“Confessions” Setting

Literary and Historical Context of “Confessions”

More “Confessions” Resources

• External Resources

  • The Poem Aloud — Listen to a reading of the poem.

  • A Brief Biography — Visit the Poetry Foundation's website to learn more about Browning's life and work.

  • Browning's Legacy — Learn how Browning's work finally rose to acclaim at the end of his life (and enjoy novelist Henry James's witty mock-epitaph for him).

  • Browning's Influence — Read an appreciation of Browning that discusses what he means to writers today.

  • Portraits of the Brownings — Visit the National Portrait Gallery's collection of Browning portraiture for a glimpse of the great (and forbidden!) love affair that may have inspired this poem: Browning's relationship with his beloved wife, fellow poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning.

• LitCharts on Other Poems by Robert Browning

  • A Face

  • A Light Woman

  • Among the Rocks

  • A Toccata of Galuppi's

  • A Woman's Last Word

  • Epilogue

  • Home-Thoughts, from Abroad

  • How they Brought the Good News from Ghent to Aix

  • Life in a Love

  • Love Among the Ruins

  • Love in a Life

  • Meeting at Night

  • My Last Duchess

  • Pictor Ignotus

  • Porphyria's Lover

  • Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister

  • The Bishop Orders His Tomb at Saint Praxed's Church

  • The Laboratory

  • The Last Ride Together

  • The Lost Leader

  • The Lost Mistress

  • The Patriot

  • The Pied Piper of Hamelin

  • Women and Roses