“Love Among the Ruins” Summary

“Love Among the Ruins” Themes

• 

  Human Transience and Mortality

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• 

  Love vs. Worldly Glory

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• 

  Nature vs. Humanity

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Line-by-Line Explanation & Analysis of “Love Among the Ruins”

• Lines 1-12

  Where the quiet-coloured end of evening smiles,
  Miles and miles
  On the solitary pastures where our sheep
  Half-asleep
  Tinkle homeward through the twilight, stray or stop
  As they crop—
  Was the site once of a city great and gay,
  (So they say)
  Of our country's very capital, its prince
  Ages since
  Held his court in, gathered councils, wielding far
  Peace or war.

  

  

  

  

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• Lines 13-24

  Now,—the country does not even boast a tree,
  As you see,
  To distinguish slopes of verdure, certain rills
  From the hills
  Intersect and give a name to, (else they run
  Into one)
  Where the domed and daring palace shot its spires
  Up like fires
  O'er the hundred-gated circuit of a wall
  Bounding all
  Made of marble, men might march on nor be pressed,
  Twelve abreast.

  

  

  

  

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• Lines 25-36

  And such plenty and perfection, see, of grass
  Never was!
  Such a carpet as, this summer-time, o'erspreads
  And embeds
  Every vestige of the city, guessed alone,
  Stock or stone—
  Where a multitude of men breathed joy and woe
  Long ago;
  Lust of glory pricked their hearts up, dread of shame
  Struck them tame;
  And that glory and that shame alike, the gold
  Bought and sold.

  

  

  

  

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• Lines 37-48

  Now,—the single little turret that remains
  On the plains,
  By the caper over-rooted, by the gourd
  Overscored,
  While the patching houseleek's head of blossom winks
  Through the chinks—
  Marks the basement whence a tower in ancient time
  Sprang sublime,
  And a burning ring, all round, the chariots traced
  As they raced,
  And the monarch and his minions and his dames
  Viewed the games.

  

  

  

  

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• Lines 49-60

  And I know, while thus the quiet-coloured eve
  Smiles to leave
  To their folding, all our many-tinkling fleece
  In such peace,
  And the slopes and rills in undistinguished grey
  Melt away—
  That a girl with eager eyes and yellow hair
  Waits me there
  In the turret whence the charioteers caught soul
  For the goal,
  When the king looked, where she looks now, breathless, dumb
  Till I come.

  

  

  

  

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• Lines 61-72

  But he looked upon the city, every side,
  Far and wide,
  All the mountains topped with temples, all the glades'
  Colonnades,
  All the causeys, bridges, aqueducts,—and then
  All the men!
  When I do come, she will speak not, she will stand,
  Either hand
  On my shoulder, give her eyes the first embrace
  Of my face,
  Ere we rush, ere we extinguish sight and speech
  Each on each.

  

  

  

  

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• Lines 73-84

  In one year they sent a million fighters forth
  South and North,
  And they built their gods a brazen pillar high
  As the sky,
  Yet reserved a thousand chariots in full force—
  Gold, of course.
  O heart! oh blood that freezes, blood that burns!
  Earth's returns
  For whole centuries of folly, noise and sin!
  Shut them in,
  With their triumphs and their glories and the rest!
  Love is best.

  

  

  

  

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“Love Among the Ruins” Symbols

• 

  The Ruined City

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“Love Among the Ruins” Poetic Devices & Figurative Language

• Imagery

  

  

  

  

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• Repetition

  

  

  

  

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• Juxtaposition

  

  

  

  

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• Alliteration

  

  

  

  

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• Simile

  

  

  

  

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“Love Among the Ruins” 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.

• Tinkle homeward
• Crop
• Distinguish
• Verdure
• Rills
• Spires
• Bounding
• Pressed
• Abreast
• O'erspreads
• Vestige
• Chinks
• Whence
• Minions
• Dames
• Dumb
• Colonnades
• Causeys
• Ere
• Brazen
• Returns

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Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme of “Love Among the Ruins”

• Form

• Meter

• Rhyme Scheme

“Love Among the Ruins” Speaker

“Love Among the Ruins” Setting

Literary and Historical Context of “Love Among the Ruins”

More “Love Among the Ruins” Resources

• External Resources

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

  • Browning's Influence — Read an article celebrating Browning's legacy.

  • More on Browning — Learn more about Browning's life and work at the Victorian Web.

  • A Brief Biography — Read the Poetry Foundation's short biography of Browning.

  • Portraits of Browning — Admire some of the portraits of Browning held in London's National Portrait Gallery.

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