An Introduction to the Study of Robert Browning's Poetry

Prospice.

The speaker in this noble monologue is one who, having fought a good fight and finished his course, lived and wrought thoroughly in sense, and soul, and intellect, is now ready and eager to encounter the ‘Arch-Fear’, Death; and then he will clasp again his Beloved, the soul of his soul, who has gone before. He leaves the rest to God.

With this monologue should be read the mystical description, in ‘The Passing of Arthur’ (Tennyson’s Idylls of the King), of “the last, dim, weird battle of the west”, beginning,—

     “A deathwhite mist slept over sand and sea.”