Robert Browning: The Last Ride Together — 100 MCQs

Browning was born in Camberwell, then a village in Surrey and now part of south London. He grew up in a Nonconformist family and was largely educated at home.

He was a Bank of England clerk and a passionate book collector. His library of several thousand volumes was the main source of the poet's largely self-directed education.

The couple left England for Italy after their secret marriage and made their home at Casa Guidi in Florence. They lived there until Elizabeth's death in 1861.

The poem appeared in Men and Women (1855), the volume that also contains 'Fra Lippo Lippi' and 'Andrea del Sarto'. Dramatis Personae (1864) is a later volume. 2

'Caliban upon Setebos' belongs to Dramatis Personae (1864), as does 'Rabbi Ben Ezra'. The other three poems appeared in Men and Women (1855).

Browning found the 'Old Yellow Book', a record of the 1698 Franceschini murder trial, in Florence. He retold the case in twelve books through different speakers, and the poem secured his reputation.

Browning deliberately rejected Tennyson-like polish in favour of rough, colloquial speech suited to psychological realism. The other three features are central to his art.

His body was brought from Venice to Westminster Abbey, where he was buried in Poets' Corner. Elizabeth Barrett Browning lies in the English Cemetery in Florence. 3

Pauline appeared in 1833, Paracelsus in 1835, Men and Women in 1855 and The Ring and the Book in 1868–69. The sequence traces his move from early Romantic verse to mature dramatic monologue.

It opens 'Rabbi Ben Ezra' (Dramatis Personae, 1864), a classic statement of Browning's optimism about aspiration and old age. This confident outlook also underlies 'The Last Ride Together'.

The poem came out in Men and Women in 1855, during Browning's years in Italy with Elizabeth Barrett Browning. It belongs to his mature middle period.

A fictional speaker, not Browning himself, reveals his character through his own words, which is the mark of the dramatic monologue. The opening 'I said' reinforces the dramatic framing. 4

The poem has ten stanzas, and the last imagines heaven as an unending ride. Each stanza is built on the same eleven-line pattern.

Every stanza has eleven lines, for example lines 1–11 in stanza I and lines 12–22 in stanza II. The regular stanza contrasts with the speaker's emotional movement.

Ten stanzas of eleven lines each give 110 lines. The final line, 'Ride, ride together, for ever ride?', is line 110.

Lines 1–2, 3–4, 6–7 and 8–10 rhyme, and line 5 rhymes with line 11 (for example 'be' and 'me' in stanza I). The scheme recurs in every stanza.

Most lines have eight syllables in four feet, as in 'I said—Then, dearest, since 'tis so'. Browning varies the stress for effect, as in the abrupt 'Hush! if you saw some western cloud'. 5

The Victorian period is named after Queen Victoria's reign (1837–1901). Browning and Tennyson are its two major poets.

'One Word More' is Browning's dedication of Men and Women to his wife ('To E.B.B.'). It places the collection's themes of love and art in a personal frame.

'My Last Duchess' appeared in Dramatic Lyrics (1842), part of the Bells and Pomegranates series. It remains the most famous example of the dramatic monologue.

Tennyson succeeded Wordsworth as Poet Laureate in 1850. Browning and Tennyson are regarded as the two pillars of Victorian poetry, often contrasted as rough and psychological versus smooth and lyrical. 6

Frederick J. Furnivall, a scholar and editor, founded the Browning Society in London in 1881. Its existence reflects Browning's rising reputation in later life.

Pauline is a confessional poem written under the spell of Shelley, whom Browning admired deeply as a young man. He later moved away from this subjective manner to the dramatic monologue.

Strafford was produced at Covent Garden in 1837 with William Macready in the title role. Browning's stage experience fed into his later dramatic monologues.

In the dedication to Sordello (1863 edition), Browning wrote that the incidents in the development of a soul were 'little else worth study'. The idea explains his psychological emphasis. 7

These lines belong to 'Andrea del Sarto' (Men and Women, 1855). They state the same philosophy of aspiration that the speaker of 'The Last Ride Together' voices.

Aurora Leigh (1856) is her verse novel about a woman writer. It is among the major long poems of the Victorian period.

'Dover Beach' hears the 'melancholy, long, withdrawing roar' of the sea of faith. Browning, by contrast, affirms hope through aspiration.

The speaker is a dramatised persona distinct from the poet, and what he says reveals his psychology. Hence R correctly explains why A is true. 8

'I said' frames the poem as a retrospective narration of an earlier speech. The speaker then moves between recalled events and present reflection.

'Since now at length my fate I know' and 'Since nothing all my love avails' show that his love is unreturned. He accepts this with dignity.

The stanza ends with 'Your leave for one more last ride with me'. This request drives the entire poem.

Lines 2–5 begin with 'Since', building a cumulative list of reasons that leads to the acceptance of failure. Repetition at the start of lines is anaphora. 9

The speaker does not blame his beloved; instead his 'whole heart rises up to bless / Your name in pride and thankfulness'. The tone is calm and generous.

He is recalling what he said to the woman he loves when she refused him. The tenderness of 'dearest' shows he still reveres her.

He gives back the hope itself but keeps its memory as his sole claim. The modesty of the request adds to his dignity.

Both words end on a single stressed syllable, 'ails', which makes the rhyme masculine. The pairs 'so'/'know' and 'bless'/'thankfulness' also open the stanza's rhyming pattern. 10

She bends her brow and fixes him with her eyes, and he then speaks of the two riding 'side by side'. Her own words are never reported.

Pride holds back while pity begins to soften her look. The speaker reads her face with intense psychological attention.

After the tense moment 'with life or death in the balance', her assent restores him. The physical image expresses emotional relief.

To be deified is to be made a god. The hyperbole conveys the exaltation he draws from one more day in her company. 11

The speaker half-hopes that nothing will follow this ride, so that the moment may become final. It anticipates the closing wish that the ride may last for ever.

Browning often begins mid-thought with colloquial interjections, which makes the speaker seem to be talking rather than composing. This is a hallmark of his dramatic style.

Two hyphenated words with repeated initial 'b' give a swelling, wave-like effect. The adjective describes the 'western cloud' in the stanza's extended image.

Omitting 'and' between items piles up heavenly images in quick succession. This intensifies the sense of cosmic radiance around the moment. 12

The rapture of the moment makes the body seem to fade before a sense of heaven. This anticipates the later view of heaven as a continuation of the ride.

The exclamation holds opposite feelings together in a single instant. Such psychological intensity is typical of Browning.

Placing the verb before the subject ('leant she', 'lay she') is a poetic inversion. The repeated 'Thus' at the start of both lines is also anaphora.

The soul is directly identified with a scroll that has been rolled up for a long time and is now spread out, with no 'like' or 'as'. The figure is therefore a metaphor. 13

The cramped scroll opening out in the wind stands for the soul relaxing once the ride begins. It marks relief after the tension of rejection.

The sentence continues across the line-break without a pause. The flow mirrors the soul's relaxing release as the ride begins.

'What need to strive with a life awry?' and 'Had I said that, had I done this' show him setting aside speculation about alternatives. He chooses to live in the present.

He consoles himself that hatred, not mere refusal, could have been her answer. This acceptance of uncertainty helps him embrace the present. 14

Each reflective stanza closes by anchoring the speaker's thought in the ride. The echo gives the poem unity and stresses his preference for lived experience.

By asking who really succeeds, he shows that failure is shared by all people. This lightens his own failure in love.

The contrast between 'the petty done' and 'the undone vast' states Browning's recurring idea that the gap between aspiration and achievement is the human condition.

The sensation of speed lifts his spirit and sets his imagination free. The ride becomes a visionary experience as well as a physical one. 15

The repeated 'What' at the start of each line is anaphora, and none of the questions expects an answer. They build the argument that perfect achievement is never found.

The 'fleshly screen' that stands between will and act implies that perfect realisation is impossible. This supports the speaker's view that all human striving is partial.

A statesman's whole career is condensed into a few lines of record. The remark deflates public fame as the speaker weighs it against his ride.

The flag planted on a heap of bones exposes the human cost behind a soldier's glory. This supports the speaker's preference for love over public honour. 16

The 'Abbey-stones' are the memorial stones of Westminster Abbey, where statesmen and soldiers are honoured. Browning himself was later buried in Poets' Corner there.

The courteous 'by their leave' mocks the great men whom he declares inferior to his ride. The speaker is cheerful and slightly teasing.

Stanza VII begins 'What does it all mean, poet?', and stanza VIII turns to 'you, great sculptor' and then the 'man of music'. Each artist is measured against the simple joy of riding.

Addressing absent or imaginary persons is apostrophe. Here it lets the speaker challenge the claims of art against love. 17

The speaker suggests that writing about the sublime does not bring the poet any closer to it. Art, like other human striving, is incomplete.

A score is twenty. The sculptor gave two decades to Art as her 'slave', yet his Venus only sends the speaker back to a living girl.

The statue of Venus, goddess of love, merely turns attention to a real girl crossing a stream. Life therefore exceeds art.

'Burn' is a Scots and northern English word for a stream. The girl 'fords' it, that is, wades across. 18

To repine is to be discontented. The speaker says that if the sculptor accepts his limited success, he too should not complain.

The praise given to the musician is lukewarm and notes that musical fashions pass. Even artistic success is thus transient.

'In fine' is an older expression meaning 'in conclusion'. The speaker sums up his argument by returning to the ride.

'Still one must lead some life beyond, / Have a bliss to die with' shows his belief that fulfilment should always point toward something not yet reached. 19

To descry is to catch sight of or discern. A bliss 'dim-descried' is one glimpsed faintly in the distance, still to be reached.

A foot on the goal and a garland recall the victor of a race. The speaker imagines total success and then 'sink[s] back shuddering', preferring the continuing quest.

The line prepares for the final stanza, where heaven is imagined as 'changed not in kind but in degree' from this joy. It shows his faith that earthly love points to heaven.

Stanza V opens by universalising failure and continues with the contrast of 'the petty done, the undone vast'. It ends with 'I hoped she would love me; here we ride.' 20

The dash and 'And yet' bring the reader back from philosophy to the dramatic situation. The beloved is still silent as he turns to his vision of heaven.

'What if we still ride on, we two' presents heaven as the ride made endless. Earthly love and heavenly bliss are joined.

The speaker pictures heaven as a heightened version of the same experience. This explains how the 'instant' can become eternal.

The temporal moment of the ride is imagined as becoming timeless. It resolves the earlier wish that 'the world may end tonight'. 21

'Old yet new' joins seemingly contradictory qualities. It expresses a life that is familiar and yet always fresh in heaven.

Immediate repetition of a word ('Ride, ride') is epizeuxis. It imitates the beat of the horse and the endless motion of the ride.

The last sentence is framed as 'What if...', so the heaven imagined is a hope sustained by love, not a claim. This is typical of Browning's optimistic but tentative faith.

A 'last' ride becomes a ride that goes on 'for ever'. The title thus reverses its first meaning of final parting. 22

The speaker turns his failure in love into a source of joy and compares it favourably with fame and art. Browning values aspiration over achievement.

He blesses her name, accepts defeat and imagines heaven as an eternal ride. Nowhere does he express resentment.

She never speaks; the reader sees her only through the lover's interpretation. This feature of the dramatic monologue leaves her real feelings uncertain.

The ride is at once a physical journey and an image of life moving forward with the beloved. It finally becomes an image of eternity.

He teases the artists about the incompleteness of their achievements ('Sing, riding's a joy! For me, I ride'). The irony serves to exalt the simple act of loving. 23

In older usage 'mistress' denotes the woman a man loves and serves. It designates the beloved, not an illicit lover.

To demur is to hold back or raise an objection. Her pride resists even as her pity begins to soften her expression.

A benediction is a blessing. The western cloud is imagined as blessed by sun, moon and evening star at once.

To sublimate is to raise to a higher or purer state. The speaker considers whether earthly bliss could raise him so far that nothing beyond would be needed. 24

He asks for 'one more last ride' (stanza I) and imagines heaven as an eternal ride (stanza X). He blesses her name and accepts his fate, so statement 1 is false.

The blessing of her name shows gratitude rather than resentment. R is therefore direct textual evidence for A.

A is false: the speaker ranks the ride (love) above statesmen's, soldiers' and artists' achievements. R is true and shows his real preference. 25

Stanza I makes the request, II records her assent, and IV begins the ride. Stanzas V–VIII reflect on failure, fame and art, and IX–X move to the vision of heaven.

Stanza VI moves from the imperfection of art ('What hand and brain went ever paired?') to statesmen and soldiers. It ends with 'My riding is better, by their leave.'

Stanza III opens 'Hush! if you saw some western cloud' and builds a cosmic image of sunset, moonrise and star-shine. It ends with the beloved lying 'a moment on my breast'.