...[A] dramatic monologue about taking refuge from a storm with the person you love most. Nestled in a cottage in the woods, the narrator and his beautiful Porphyria cozy up by the fire and gaze longingly at each other.
Realizing that Porphyria loves him, the narrator decides to preserve the Kodak moment by strangling her with her own hair. He then kisses, props up, and sits beside her dead body, admiring its loveliness through the rest of the night. So much for everything you thought you knew about Victorian love poetry.
"Porphyria's Lover" is one of the earliest of Robert Browning's dramatic monologues. It was originally published in 1836 in a magazine called the Monthly Repository under the title "Porphyria," and then republished in 1842 in a book called Dramatic Lyrics alongside another of Browning's poems, "Johannes Agricola in Meditation." The 1842 publication titled the two poems, collectively, "Madhouse Cells." It wasn't until 1863 that the poem was given the title that we now use, "Porphyria's Lover."
The 1842 title "Madhouse Cells" underlines the abnormal psychology of the speakers of Browning's poems. Actually, to say "abnormal psychology" is putting it pretty mildly: the speaker of "Porphyria's Lover" murders his girlfriend by strangling her with her hair, and then sits and admires the corpse for the rest of the night. So "psychotic" might be a better way of describing the speaker of "Porphyria's Lover."
Now might be a good time to point out that the speaker of "Porphyria's Lover," like the speakers of any of Browning's monologues, is a dramatic character – it's not Robert Browning himself! The poem is entirely from the point of view of a psychotic killer, which puts the reader in the uncomfortable position of reading the thoughts – or, if you're reading the poem out loud, of giving voice to the thoughts – of a madman. This is just one reason that Browning's monologues have received so much critical attention in recent decades.
Unfortunately for Robert Browning, though, most of his poetry was ignored during his life – his wife, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, was much more successful commercially. Ever heard of the sonnet "How do I love thee? Let me count the ways…"? That's Elizabeth Barrett Browning, writing about her love for her husband, Robert. During the Victorian period (i.e., during the reign of Queen Victoria in Great Britain, or 1837-1901), readers preferred poems like Barrett Browning's – poems about love and beauty – rather than poems like Robert Browning's, which probe the psychological depths of criminals and murderers.
Text of the Poem
The rain set early in tonight,
The sullen wind was soon awake,
It tore the elm-tops down for spite,
And did its worst to vex the lake:
I listened with heart fit to break.
When glided in Porphyria; straight
She shut the cold out and the storm,
And kneeled and made the cheerless grate
Blaze up, and all the cottage warm;
Which done, she rose, and from her form
Withdrew the dripping cloak and shawl,
And laid her soiled gloves by, untied
Her hat and let the damp hair fall,
And, last, she sat down by my side
And called me. When no voice replied,
She put my arm about her waist,
And made her smooth white shoulder bare,
And all her yellow hair displaced,
And, stooping, made my cheek lie there,
And spread, o'er all, her yellow hair,
Murmuring how she loved me – she
Too weak, for all her heart's endeavor,
To set its struggling passion free
From pride, and vainer ties dissever,
And give herself to me forever.
But passion sometimes would prevail,
Nor could tonight's gay feast restrain
A sudden thought of one so pale
For love of her, and all in vain:
So, she was come through wind and rain.
Be sure I looked up at her eyes
Happy and proud; at last I knew
Porphyria worshiped me: surprise
Made my heart swell, and still it grew
While I debated what to do.
That moment she was mine, mine, fair,
Perfectly pure and good: I found
A thing to do, and all her hair
In one long yellow string I wound
Three times her little throat around,
And strangled her. No pain felt she;
I am quite sure she felt no pain.
As a shut bud that holds a bee,
I warily oped her lids: again
Laughed the blue eyes without a stain.
And I untightened next the tress
About her neck; her cheek once more
Blushed bright beneath my burning kiss:
I propped her head up as before,
Only, this time my shoulder bore
Her head, which droops upon it still:
The smiling rosy little head,
So glad it has its utmost will,
That all it scorned at once is fled,
And I, its love, am gained instead!
Porphyria's love: she guessed not how
Her darling one wish would be heard.
And thus we sit together now,
And all night long we have not stirred,
And yet God has not said a word!
