The Full Text of “The Lost Mistress”
1All's over, then: does truth sound bitter
2As one at first believes?
3Hark, 'tis the sparrows' good-night twitter
4About your cottage eaves!
5And the leaf-buds on the vine are woolly,
6I noticed that, today;
7One day more bursts them open fully
8—You know the red turns grey.
9Tomorrow we meet the same then, dearest?
10May I take your hand in mine?
11Mere friends are we,—well, friends the merest
12Keep much that I resign:
13For each glance of the eye so bright and black,
14Though I keep with heart's endeavor,—
15Your voice, when you wish the snowdrops back,
16Though it stay in my soul for ever!—
17Yet I will but say what mere friends say,
18Or only a thought stronger;
19I will hold your hand but as long as all may,
20Or so very little longer!
The Full Text of “The Lost Mistress”
1All's over, then: does truth sound bitter
2As one at first believes?
3Hark, 'tis the sparrows' good-night twitter
4About your cottage eaves!
5And the leaf-buds on the vine are woolly,
6I noticed that, today;
7One day more bursts them open fully
8—You know the red turns grey.
9Tomorrow we meet the same then, dearest?
10May I take your hand in mine?
11Mere friends are we,—well, friends the merest
12Keep much that I resign:
13For each glance of the eye so bright and black,
14Though I keep with heart's endeavor,—
15Your voice, when you wish the snowdrops back,
16Though it stay in my soul for ever!—
17Yet I will but say what mere friends say,
18Or only a thought stronger;
19I will hold your hand but as long as all may,
20Or so very little longer!
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“The Lost Mistress” Introduction
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Robert Browning's "The Lost Mistress" is a dramatic monologue (a poem in the voice of a particular character) told from the point of view of a man whose lover has just broken things off with him. The lady wants to stay friends, and the speaker assures her that they can indeed meet again the next day—but as he wrestles with a slew of complicated feelings, it becomes clear that this will not be an easy transition. The poem suggests that complications might be hard to avoid when romances end: love doesn't turn on and off like a tap. Browning first published this poem in his 1845 collection Dramatic Romances and Lyrics, the seventh installment of a multi-volume collection entitled Bells and Pomegranates.
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“The Lost Mistress” Summary
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It's all over, then. Can the truth really be as awful as it seems? Listen—the sparrows are chirping goodnight in the eaves of your cottage.
And look, the opening buds on the vines are showing off fuzzy new leaves—I noticed that, earlier. By tomorrow they'll be all the way open—but their red will inevitably fade to grey, you know.
Will we see each other tomorrow, like always, my dear? May I hold your hand? We'll just be friends now—well, except that even the least intimate acquaintances get to enjoy a lot that I have to give up:
Every time you glance at me with your shining dark eyes (even if I try my hardest to quiet my heart)—every time I hear your voice wishing the snowdrops would come back (though the sound touches my very soul)—
I'll still only say what a casual friend would say—or, at least, I'll only think something ever so slightly more intense. And I won't hold your hand longer than any other person might—well, maybe just a tiny bit longer!
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“The Lost Mistress” Themes
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The Difficulty of Transitioning from Romance to Friendship
"The Lost Mistress" explores the pain of lost love. In this dramatic monologue (a poem spoken in the voice of a particular character), a speaker says a pained goodnight to the woman who has just broken up with him. The lady wants to go on being friends, and while the the speaker is willing to try, he also has to admit that his own feelings won't just magically disappear. Love, this poem suggests, doesn't evaporate when a relationship ends—and moving from a romance into a friendship can be a tall order.
As the poem begins, the speaker is coming to terms with the shock of his failed romance. "All's over," and for the speaker at least, the breakup has come as an unwelcome surprise: the "truth" of this final parting sounds awfully "bitter" to his ears. In his suffering, the speaker feels as if the whole world around him is responding to his loss. He hears a sad farewell in "the sparrows' good-night twitter" and notices the "leaf-buds on the vine," which are about to "burst [...] open," a springy detail that hints this romance was never fully realized—it died before it even had a chance to bloom.
Such profound grief and pain make the lady's hope that they might stay friends feel rather challenging to the speaker. He suffers both from the certainty that he'll never stop loving this woman and from some veiled feelings of anger and bitterness. Though he accepts that he and his former lover will be "mere friends" and nothing more, he also knows that their relationship will be different from one between people who have only ever been friends. For him, being friends with this woman will always be complicated by his pleasure in her "eye so bright and black."
Perhaps he's also a little angry. The idea that he might one day hear his beloved wish for those snowdrops to return might symbolically suggest that he hopes she'll eventually want a second crack at the springtime of their love—one he might decide not to give her! She's wounded him with her rejection, and his pain will no doubt complicate their friendship.
Similarly, there might be an edge on his remark about the unopened "leaf-buds": "You know the red turns grey." Besides providing a symbolic image of new things withering (as their relationship did), this line might be the speaker's subtle dig at his beloved, implying that her physical beauty can't last. The speaker, in other words, is torn between a persistent love for this lady and anger at her—difficult soil for a friendship to grow in!
Though the speaker is resigned to the new shape of this relationship, then, he knows that he can't be a neutral, pleasant friend—at least not right away. Even if his actions appear like the actions of a friend, the feeling behind them will be "a thought stronger," his grip on the lady's hand lingering "so very little longer" than another friend's might. The poem implies such difficulty is unavoidable. People can't just flip a switch on their feelings, and the road from romance to friendship might often be a rocky one.
- See where this theme is active in the poem.
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Line-by-Line Explanation & Analysis of “The Lost Mistress”
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Lines 1-4
All's over, then: does truth sound bitter
As one at first believes?
Hark, 'tis the sparrows' good-night twitter
About your cottage eaves!"The Lost Mistress" is a dramatic monologue, a poem spoken in the voice of a particular character. In this case, that character is a guy who's just been dumped, and he's addressing the "mistress" (that is, the girlfriend) of the title—his former lover.
"All's over, then," the speaker begins, seemingly resigned to the fact that he and his lady friend will be parting ways. Yet a second later, he asks if "truth sounds bitter / As one at first believes," suggesting that he's struggling to accept that the romance is over. Clearly, this wasn't a mutual decision.
He then addresses the woman directly, saying:
Hark, 'tis the sparrow's good-night twitter
About your cottage eaves!The imagery here reveals the poem's setting: the speaker is standing outside this woman's cottage. It's evening, and the birds are chirruping as they fly to their nests under the overhang of the roof. Heard through the speaker's miserable ears, the sparrows' cheery chatter seems sad: he is also saying "good-night," but much less enthusiastically. This poem will be the tale of a man trying to come to terms with an unwanted farewell, not altogether succeeding.
The poem is built from five quatrains (or four-line stanzas) that follow a simple ABAB rhyme scheme. The consistent perfect rhymes make the last words of lines stand out, emphasizing key words and ideas. The bitter / twitter rhyme, for example, highlights the juxtaposition between the birds' pleasant trilling and the speaker's dejected mood.
Browning uses accentual meter for this poem, meaning that lines contain a set number of stressed syllables, but those stresses can appear anywhere in the line: the poem doesn't stick to any one metrical foot (like the da-DUM of an iamb or the DUM-da-da of a dactyl). In this poem, odd lines use four stressed syllables, while even lines use three. Here's how that sounds in the first stanza:
All's over, then: does truth sound bitter
As one at first believes?
Hark, 'tis the sparrows' good-night twitter
About your cottage eaves!This simple, conversational form captures the speaker's pure blindsided grief—and will also suggest, as the poem goes on, that he's working hard to conceal big, tempestuous emotions about his breakup.
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Lines 5-8
And the leaf-buds on the vine are woolly,
I noticed that, today;
One day more bursts them open fully
—You know the red turns grey. -
Lines 9-12
Tomorrow we meet the same then, dearest?
May I take your hand in mine?
Mere friends are we,—well, friends the merest
Keep much that I resign: -
Lines 13-16
For each glance of the eye so bright and black,
Though I keep with heart's endeavor,—
Your voice, when you wish the snowdrops back,
Though it stay in my soul for ever!— -
Lines 17-20
Yet I will but say what mere friends say,
Or only a thought stronger;
I will hold your hand but as long as all may,
Or so very little longer!
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“The Lost Mistress” Symbols
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Spring
The signs of spring the speaker notices around him—the fresh red leaf buds, the snowdrops, the twitter of sparrows—symbolize love's beauty and fragility.
As the speaker leaves his beloved's cottage, the sight and sound of cheerful springtime life adds insult to the injury of his breakup. All this bright foliage and birdsong only reminds him that the springy promise of love between him and this lady is lost. The twittering sparrows, to his ears, seem only to be saying "good-night." And the almost-open "leaf-buds," still the fresh red of new leaves not yet exposed to the sun, only remind him that, inevitably, "the red turns grey." He's clearly not just talking about a natural phenomenon here: this is a symbolic image of the passion between him and his beloved, once so promising, now so dead.
For that matter, the image of the fading leaves might be a bitter warning that any future love the woman experiences will also fade, as will her transient beauty. Perhaps the speaker is showing some spite here, warning his former lover that she's making a mistake by leaving him: youth and youthful passion won't last forever!
There might be something similar going on when the speaker imagines the sweet sound of the lady's voice "wish[ing] the snowdrops back." Someday, the image symbolically suggests, the lady might long for the spring of their love as much as the speaker does—or so the speaker hopes.
- See where this symbol appears in the poem.
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“The Lost Mistress” Poetic Devices & Figurative Language
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Repetition
Repetition emphasizes the speaker's difficulty in dealing with the end of his relationship. In lines 11-12, for instance, he says:
Mere friends are we,—well, friends the merest
Keep much that I resign:The bitter diacope on "friends" evokes the speaker's unhappiness with this new state of affairs. He clearly wants to be more than friends. Besides, as his polyptoton on "mere" and "merest" stresses, even the most casual of friends get to enjoy pleasures that now only cause him pain, like the flash of this lady's bright black eyes. People who really are just friends have an advantage over him in that they aren't carrying around memories of love.
The speaker returns to this language again in line 17:
Yet I will say what mere friends say,
Here, wearily, he echoes his earlier sentiment; he will play the part of a mere friend, even if secretly his "thought[s]" regarding this woman are just a touch "stronger" than a friend's would be. His diacope on the word "say" stresses that, in action if not in feeling, he'll abide by the lady's wishes—but the repetition also calls up his bleakly unhappy (and perhaps faintly sarcastic) voice for the reader: What will I say? Oh, only what mere friends say, of course, nothing more, never!
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Parallelism
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Understatement
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Imagery
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"The Lost Mistress" 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.
- Mistress
- Hark
- 'Tis
- Eaves
- Mere
- Resign
- Endeavor
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"Mistress" here just means "girlfriend"—not "married lover," as a modern reader might assume!
- See where this vocabulary word appears in the poem.
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Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme of “The Lost Mistress”
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Form
"The Lost Mistress" is one of Browning's trademark dramatic monologues: poems written in the voice of a particular character. In this case, that character is a guy who's just been dumped—and while he's crestfallen, he's taking it a lot better than some of Browning's other characters might.
The poem is built from five quatrains (or four-line stanzas) with a singsong ABAB rhyme scheme. This simple form mirrors the speaker's simple grief and bewilderment at his loss—but also contains (and perhaps attempts to conceal) some complex feelings. Knowing he wants to preserve his relationship with his former lover, the speaker also confesses he's not sure his feelings will burn off just like that. The poem's unpretentious shape captures the speaker's quiet, unhappy certainty that he'll go on loving even when he'll have to keep that love under wraps.
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Meter
The poem is written in accentual meter, meaning that though lines contain a specified number of stresses, the stressed and unstressed beats don't follow a set pattern. Generally speaking, the odd lines in this poem contain four stressed syllables, while the even lines contain three. Here's how that sounds in the first stanza:
All's over then: does truth sound bitter
As one at first believes?
Hark, 'tis the sparrows' good-night twitter
About your cottage eaves!Accentual meter allows the poem to feel natural and conversational, not too formal. The speaker is meant to be addressing his lost love, after all, not an audience.
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Rhyme Scheme
While accentual meter keeps the poem from sounding too formal, a simple rhyme scheme gives it some sad music. That rhyme scheme looks like this:
ABAB
The poem uses only perfect rhymes, so the words and images that appear at the ends of lines really pop. Browning clearly chose these rhymes carefully:
- In the first stanza, for instance, bitter / twitter pointedly juxtaposes the speaker's unhappiness with the jubilant birdsong all around him.Spring has just begun, but inside, he's enduring the bitter winter of heartbreak.
- And in the third stanza, dearest / merest emphasizes the difference between how the speaker really feels and how he is now expected to behave.
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“The Lost Mistress” Speaker
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"The Lost Mistress" is a dramatic monologue, meaning that the poem is told from the perspective of a character who isn't the poet; these poems are most often addressed to another character. In this case, the speaker is someone whose relationship with a woman he loves has just come to an end. He is standing outside her house bidding her "good-night," knowing that in the morning, he'll have to act as if they've never been anything more than friends. It's clear from the speaker's mix of grief, bitterness, and longing that he isn't the one who ended the romance. He is trying to accept the change, but he knows it will be a while before he can look at his former lover without harboring secret hopes that they'll get back together.
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“The Lost Mistress” Setting
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The poem takes place at the door of a cottage, where the speaker—a fellow whom the cottage's owner has just dumped—wishes his ex-lover an unhappy goodbye. Painfully, the birds around him are "twitter[ing]" happily and "leaf-buds" are about to "burst[] open": it is spring. The cheery newness of the season throws the speaker's misery into relief. It might be spring around him, but it's winter in his heart.
When the speaker pictures his former lover someday "wish[ing] the snowdrops back," then, there's a hint of symbolism in the air: he's imagining, not just that she might long for the literal flowers to bloom, but that she might someday regret the romance she nipped in the bud.
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Literary and Historical Context of “The Lost Mistress”
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Literary Context
The English poet Robert Browning (1812-1889) was most famous in his time for not sounding much like a poet. His contemporaries were confused by his most distinctive works: dramatic monologues in which Browning inhabited a character like an actor playing a part. Even Oscar Wilde, a big Browning fan, famously said that "[George] Meredith is a prose Browning, and so is Browning." The Victorian literary world was much more at ease with the melancholy lyricism of Tennyson or the elegance of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (Browning's wife, and a much more famous poet) than with the novelistic storytelling of Browning's work.
But it's on his earthy, vibrant dramatic monologues that Browning's enduring reputation rests. His most famous poems form a veritable rogues' gallery, with narrators from a corrupt bishop to a murderous Italian duke to an equally murderous lover. By allowing these hideous men to speak for themselves, Browning explored the darkest corners of human nature—and took a particular interest in the ways that people justify their terrible deeds. Villains, Browning's monologues suggest, don't tend to think that they're villains.
Browning's poetry wasn't all theatrical murder and greed, though. He also wrote tenderly about heroism, homesickness, and heartbreak. "The Lost Mistress" fits into this latter mode, with the speaker exploring the difficulty of letting go of love while trying to maintain a friendship. And while the speaker of this poem isn't twisted or villainous as those in some of Browning's more famous titles, he still proves himself a complex and contradictory character. As such, "The Lost Mistress" is one more proof of Oscar Wilde's claim that Browning was "a creator of character" on a level with Shakespeare himself.
Historical Context
Robert Browning was considerably luckier in love than the unfortunate speaker of this poem. A passionate man, he lived out one of literature's most touching love stories.
In 1845, Browning paid his first visit to a rising star in the literary world: Elizabeth Barrett. Unusually for a woman writer of the time, Barrett had become wildly famous; Browning was only one of many readers to be moved by her soulful, elegant poetry. He wrote her a fan letter, and the two began a warm correspondence. Eventually, they fell deeply in love.
Barrett's tyrannical father was having none of it, however. Besides preferring to keep his talented daughter (and her earnings) to himself, he disapproved of Browning, who was several years younger than Barrett—unconventional in a Victorian marriage—and not yet a commercially successful writer himself. In order to defy Mr. Barrett, the couple had to run away; they left England for Italy in 1846. (Perhaps they rather enjoyed this: in eloping to Italy, they were following in the footsteps of two of their literary heroes, Mary and Percy Shelley.) Outraged, Elizabeth's father disinherited her.
The newlywed Brownings, undaunted, set up house in Florence, where they would live happily for over a decade before Elizabeth fell ill. She died in Robert's arms at the age of only 55.
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More “The Lost Mistress” Resources
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External Resources
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A Brief Biography — Visit the Poetry Foundation's website to learn more about Robert Browning's life and career.
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Dramatic Romances and Lyrics — Flip through a digitized copy of Browning's Dramatic Romances and Lyrics, in which "The Lost Mistress" was originally published.
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The Poem Aloud — Listen to a reading of the poem.
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Browning's Legacy — Read an essay celebrating the bicentenary of Browning's birth and learn how Browning continues to influence poetry today.
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Browning's Influence — Read an article about Browning's influence on the Welsh poet Dylan Thomas—as discovered through Thomas's jottings on the back of an envelope. ("The Lost Mistress" was one of the poems that Thomas singled out!)
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LitCharts on Other Poems by Robert Browning
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