Get hundreds more LitCharts at www.litcharts.

com

Confessions
POEM TEXT 35 How sad and bad and mad it was—
36 But then, how it was sweet!
1 What is he buzzing in my ears?
2 "Now that I come to die,
3 Do I view the world as a vale of tears?" SUMMARY
4 Ah, reverend sir, not I!
What's that nonsense this priest is whispering in my ear? "Now
5 What I viewed there once, what I view again that you're about to die, do you see the world as a place of trials
6 Where the physic bottles stand and sorrows?" Dear Father: no, I most certainly don't!
7 On the table's edge,—is a suburb lane, What I once saw in the world—what I seem to see again, there
8 With a wall to my bedside hand. where the medicine bottles stand at the edge of the table—is a
suburban street, with a wall over here on the side of the bed
9 That lane sloped, much as the bottles do, where my hand lies.
10 From a house you could descry That street, like those bottles, sloped, running downhill from a
11 O'er the garden-wall; is the curtain blue house you could catch a glimpse of over the garden wall... would
12 Or green to a healthy eye? you say my bedroom curtain is blue or green, if you see it with
healthy eyes?
13 To mine, it serves for the old June weather To me, at any rate, it looks like the blue sky of long-ago June
14 Blue above lane and wall; above the street and the wall. And that furthest medicine
15 And that farthest bottle labelled "Ether" bottle, the bottle of anesthetic, is the tall house at the top of the
16 Is the house o'ertopping all. hill.
From a balcony up close to that bottle's cork, a girl looked for
17 At a terrace, somewhere near the stopper, me one June. I know, Father, it isn't right I should tell you about
18 There watched for me, one June, this; forgive me, my poor old mind isn't at its best.
19 A girl: I know, sir, it's improper, But, you see, there was a path...you could get there if you
20 My poor mind's out of tune. tiptoed right along the wall, to keep out of sight of all the eyes in
the house but that girl's. The family called their house "The
21 Only, there was a way... you crept Lodge."
22 Close by the side, to dodge What right did a layabout like me have to come up their fancy
23 Eyes in the house, two eyes except: street? But, if I kept really close to the friendly wall, it didn't
24 They styled their house "The Lodge." matter if the family stared so hard that their eyes went round
as the letter O: they still couldn't catch the girl and I together as
25 What right had a lounger up their lane? she tiptoed downstairs from the attic up by the top of the
26 But, by creeping very close, anesthetic bottle and met me under the rose arbor at the front
gate.
27 With the good wall's help,—their eyes might strain
28 And stretch themselves to Oes, Oh dear, yes, we loved each other, Father—we used to meet
with each other. How shockingly wrong and crazy of us—but, on
29 Yet never catch her and me together, the other hand, how very, very sweet it was.
30 As she left the attic, there,
31 By the rim of the bottle labelled "Ether," THEMES
32 And stole from stair to stair,

33 And stood by the rose-wreathed gate. Alas, LOVE, MEMORY, AND CONSOLATION
34 We loved, sir—used to meet: Lying on his deathbed, the speaker of “Confessions”
fondly remembers a secret romance from his youth.

©2022 LitCharts LLC v.007 www.LitCharts.com Page 1

 Get hundreds more LitCharts at www.litcharts.com
He knows that it was “sad and bad and mad” of his young self to talk about. He immediately asks if the speaker “view[s] this
sneak out and meet a girl against her parents’ wishes, but he world as a vale of tears” (in other words, whether he sees the
also remembers their romance as deeply “sweet.” It was so world as a miserable place). The speaker waves this grim
sweet, in fact, that he gets lost in his memories, transported suggestion away as an irritating “buzzing,” and insists that he
from the sickroom around him to the street where he and his doesn’t see things that way at all. To this speaker, life has been
girlfriend used to canoodle. Memories of love, the poem more a joy than a slog through suffering and sin.
suggests, offer some of the deepest pleasure and consolation That’s especially clear in the speaker’s description of a secret
there is. love affair he enjoyed in his youth. He confesses this tale to the
The poem’s speaker is a very sick man: the priest has come to priest with a rueful “Alas,” showing he knows he should feel
hear his last confession, and his bedroom is stocked with some remorse for it, but his detailed memories of how he and
“physic bottles” (that is, bottles of medicines). The presence of his girlfriend used to sneak out together make it clear that he
“Ether,” a strong anesthetic, suggests that he might be in remembers these events with much more fondness and
serious pain, too. pleasure than regret and shame.
In spite of his suffering and his coming death, the speaker pooh- His girlfriend’s family were snobbish and conventional: they
poohs the priest’s idea that life is a “vale of tears”: because he “styled their house ‘The Lodge,’” giving their suburban home a
once had a secret love affair with the girl next door, he knows fancy name, and didn’t want a “lounger” like the speaker sniffing
for a fact that life isn’t all suffering. The mere memory of a long- around their daughter. The speaker knows that, by both the
ago “June” when he and his girlfriend used to “creep[]” out priest’s and the family’s standards, this romance was “sad and
secretly to meet each other by a “rose-wreathed gate” assures mad and bad.” That doesn’t stop him from remembering it
him that life has plenty of pleasures. mostly as deeply “sweet.”
In fact, the longer he reflects on this long-ago romance, the Through this speaker’s fond, wistful voice, the poem thus
more he’s swept away into his memories, until the sky-blue argues that plenty of forbidden or unconventional love might
curtain over his window seems to become the “old June really be part of what makes life worth living—and that no stern
weather” and the bottle of anesthetic becomes the house priest or watchful parent can get in its way. In this light, the
where his girlfriend lived. Memories of love, in other words, sinful old world isn’t just a grim “vale of tears” people must slog
transform his sickroom around him, making a place of pain and through on their way to Heaven, but a place of many delights.
disease into a miniature stage set for his romantic past to play
out on. Where this theme appears in the poem:
The speaker’s memories of his forbidden love, the poem • Lines 1-36
suggests, are better than any anesthetic, giving him enduring
consolation and sweetness that can sustain him even through
the painful end of his life.
LINE-BY
LINE-BY-LINE
-LINE ANAL
ANALYSIS
YSIS
Where this theme appears in the poem:
LINES 1-4
• Lines 1-36 What is he buzzing in my ears?
"Now that I come to die,
Do I view the world as a vale of tears?"
THE THRILL OF FORBIDDEN LOVE
Ah, reverend sir, not I!
The priest who comes to hear the speaker’s last
This dramatic monologue—a poem spoken in the voice of a
confession on his deathbed expects him to say that
particular character—begins with its speaker, a sick old man,
the world is a “vale of tears”—to soberly reflect on his sins and
lying on his deathbed. He might be ill, but he still has enough
prepare to leave this world for a better one. The speaker,
energy for an outburst of irritation: "What is he buzzing in my
perhaps to the priest’s surprise, refuses. Instead, he tells a story
ears?"
about how an illicit romance from his youth was one of the best
things that ever happened to him. Through the speaker’s happy The irritating whisperer here, it turns out, is a priest, who (as
memories, the poem suggests that it’s not a sin to fall in love, the poem's title suggests) is probably here to hear the speaker's
even love that conventional morality forbids. For that matter, last confession. He's begun with a traditionally priestly
the poem suggests that forbidden love often triumphs over question, asking the speaker if he "view[s] the world as a vale of
rules and restrictions! tears" now that he's at the end of his life. He might mean to
encourage the speaker to repent for his past sins and look
The priest who visits the speaker at the beginning of the poem
hopefully toward heaven; the old line about life as a "vale of
has a preconceived notion of what the speaker might want to

©2022 LitCharts LLC v.007 www.LitCharts.com Page 2

 Get hundreds more LitCharts at www.litcharts.com
tears" alludes to a hymn to the Virgin Mary, asking her to take (or catch a glimpse) of it only from over the "garden wall."
care of all the poor sufferers down on earth. These words suggest that trying to get a look at this house over
This speaker, however, isn't willing to play along. Does he view that wall was a habit for this speaker—and that he lived rather
the world as a place of sorrow, suffering, and trials? No! Even as lower down the hill than whoever lived up there. Perhaps
he respectfully addresses the priest as "reverend sir," he clearly there's a hint of symbolism there. Whoever lived up in this
takes a different view of the world (and seems annoyed to be house on the hill might have been higher than the speaker in
interrupted in his own thoughts by these pious "buzzing[s]." some way: fancier or richer, perhaps.
The rest of this poem will explain how the speaker does see the
LINES 11-16
world: as a place of many joys, some of them ones the priest
wouldn't approve of. Right from the start, the poem's shape is the curtain blue
suggests this deathbed confession won't be a tragic one: Or green to a healthy eye?
To mine, it serves for the old June weather
• The bouncy accentual meter doesn't stick to any one Blue above lane and wall;
flavor of metrical foot, like dactyls or trochees
trochees. And that farthest bottle labelled "Ether"
Instead, it uses a predictable number of stresses Is the house o'ertopping all.
arranged in unpredictable patterns, alternating The speaker interrupts himself for a moment to ask the priest
between four-beat lines (as in "Do I view the world whether his sickroom curtain looks "blue / Or green to a
as a vale of tears
tears?") and three-beat lines (as in "Ah, healthy eye." This moment of imagery gives readers a glimpse of
re
revverend sir
sir, not I!") the speaker's sickroom, but also feels like an odd digression at
• That choice makes the poem feel flexible, first. In fact, the speaker is only asking because he wants more
conversational, and lighthearted: there's no rigidly stage dressing for the story he's about to tell. The curtain looks
regular meter here, just a jaunty, propulsive beat. blue to him, he decides, even if it doesn't look blue to the
• A singsongy ABAB rh rhyme
yme scheme supports that priest—so it'll be the perfect backdrop, a blue that "serves for
upbeat feeling. the old June weather" that once hung above the street he was
just describing.
This speaker's last thoughts on earth, these choices suggest,
will be of happy things (and perhaps slightly irreverent ones). Similarly, the bottles on the table become his miniature stage
set. The "farthest bottle labelled 'Ether'" now transforms into
LINES 5-11 the house he was describing in the previous stanza, the house
What I viewed there once, what I view again at the very top of the hill.
Where the physic bottles stand Both the curtain and the "bottle labelled 'Ether'" speak to just
On the table's edge,—is a suburb lane, how ill the speaker is. His eyes are failing to the extent that he
With a wall to my bedside hand. can no longer tell blue from green. The ether bottle suggests
That lane sloped, much as the bottles do, that he's in serious pain (ether is a powerful anesthetic). But
From a house you could descry these signs of his illness hardly seem to matter to him once they
O'er the garden-wall; become part of the stage on which his memories play out.
The dying speaker has firmly told the visiting priest that he In other words, the memories the speaker is about to
doesn't "view the world as a vale of tears," as the priest seems describe—the memories that make him feel life isn't a vale of
to. Now he explains how he does "view the world," with a bit of tears—are carrying him away, offering a consoling escape from
teasing polyptoton that picks up on the priest's language: his illness. Perhaps he was already in this other world when the
"What I viewed there once, what I view again," he says, is a priest bustled in and started "buzzing in [his] ear."
particular street in a particular suburb, long ago.
LINES 17-20
He sees this street more clearly in his mind's eye even than the
sickroom around him. Gesturing to "where the physic bottles" At a terrace, somewhere near the stopper,
(that is, medicine bottles) "stand / On the table's edge," he There watched for me, one June,
speaks as if he can see the street floating over the table right A girl: I know, sir, it's improper,
now. The bottles even become a useful illustration. Arranged in My poor mind's out of tune.
order of height, they "slope," just like the street the speaker's Using the ether bottle as a model of the highest, tallest house
describing. on the long-ago street, the speaker at last reveals why this
At the top of this hilly street, the speaker remembers, there house was so important to him. As astute readers might already
was an important house. Readers get a sense that it was both have guessed, this was the house where a girl used to "watch[]
meaningful and a bit out of reach: the speaker could "descry" for [him], one June." The speaker's fondest memory is a summer

©2022 LitCharts LLC v.007 www.LitCharts.com Page 3

 Get hundreds more LitCharts at www.litcharts.com
romance—just a fling, really, if it lasted only for "one June." the bottom of the hill doing sniffing around their daughter?
Perhaps this doesn't come as a big surprise to the reader, but
LINES 25-32
the speaker still seems a little shy about it. Look carefully at his
phrasing as he introduces the subject: What right had a lounger up their lane?
But, by creeping very close,
At a terrace, somewhere near the stopper, With the good wall's help,—their eyes might strain
There watched for me, one June, And stretch themselves to Oes,
A girl
girl: [...] Yet never catch her and me together,
As she left the attic, there,
That "girl" doesn't appear until right at the end of the setup By the rim of the bottle labelled "Ether,"
here. The speaker could have just as easily said, "At a terrace, And stole from stair to stair,
somewhere near the stopper, / A girl once watched for me," just The speaker knows that, by his girlfriend's family's standards,
for instance. Instead, he starts with the idea that someone his young self was nothing more than a useless "lounger" (or
"watched for him," only slowly building up to the big reveal. layabout) who had no "right" to walk "up their lane," let alone
He's quick, then, to assure the priest that "I know, sir, it's flirt with their daughter. Luckily, like Pyr
Pyramus
amus, he had the help
improper," and to make excuses for himself, claiming that his of a friendly wall to protect him from the snobbish family's
"poor mind's out of tune," he's not thinking straight. But he glares. Pressed right up against this wall, he could make his way
seems to have been thinking straight enough so far! There safely by no matter how hard the family looked for him.
might be just a hint of teasing in this line: a sense that he knows He seems to take as much pleasure in that victory now as he did
the priest will think such a relationship was "improper," but that then. Take a look at the little joke in these lines:
he himself has other ideas about it.
[...] their eyes might strain
LINES 21-24 And stretch themselves to Oes Oes,
Only, there was a way... you crept
Close by the side, to dodge Here, he's saying that the family's eyes could stretch until they
Eyes in the house, two eyes except: were round as the letter "O" and still not catch him and his
They styled their house "The Lodge." girlfriend. He's also throwing in a quick pun
pun: "eyes" sounds just
Perhaps the speaker isn't so abashed about his "improper" like "I"s (especially next to those "Oes").
summer romance as he assured the priest he was. Instead, he This is just a throwaway joke, but that's exactly what makes it
takes delight in remembering exactly how he got away with meaningful. Such a joke char
characterizes
acterizes the speaker, suggesting
visiting his sweetheart that long-ago June. that his mind is as quick and nimble as his feet—and that he
Part of the impropriety of this romance, it turns out, was to do takes great pleasure in all his tricksiness. Perhaps this memory
with all the unfriendly "eyes in the house"—a moment of is fun for him, not just because it's nice to remember the girl he
synecdoche that suggests the girl's family (and maybe other had a crush on one summer, but because it's nice to remember
members of the Victorian household—the cook, the how quick and witty and skillful he was in his youth. (The same
housekeeper?) were on the alert for any unwanted boyfriends could be said of his girlfriend, who sneaks down from her attic
sniffing around. The only "two eyes" the speaker didn't have to "from stair to stair," creeping out without attracting anyone's
"dodge" were his girlfriend's. notice.)

Describing the unfriendly family as "eyes," the speaker also Such memories might be especially consoling for the speaker
suggests that they cared a lot about how things looked. That because he's in so much pain now. Once again, the "bottle
impression only gets stronger when the speaker remarks, labelled 'Ether'" appears here, still playing the role of the
almost as an aside, that this family "styled their house 'The girlfriend's house, still reminding readers that this guy isn't
Lodge.'" In other words, it wasn't enough that their hilltop going anywhere now.
house was probably one of the fanciest on the street. They also LINES 33-36
had to give it a name. They couldn't just be Number 12, they
had to be The Lodge. And stood by the rose-wreathed gate. Alas,
We loved, sir—used to meet:
This suburban family, in other words, was probably a little more How sad and bad and mad it was—
well-to-do than the rest of the street. Certainly, they were But then, how it was sweet!
snobbish. The speaker's interest in their daughter might not
At long last, the speaker remembers, he and his girlfriend would
just have been "improper" from a priest's point of view, but
be reunited. Once she made it down the stairs and he made it
from a classist Victorian's point of view: what was this kid from
along the wall, they'd stand together "by the rose-wreathed

©2022 LitCharts LLC v.007 www.LitCharts.com Page 4

 Get hundreds more LitCharts at www.litcharts.com
gate"—an idyllic image of young love framed in flowers.
Here, though, the speaker stops short; readers never get to see
POETIC DEVICES
the couple kiss. That's because the speaker remembers who IMAGERY
he's talking to here—the priest, remember him?—and cuts his
memory off with a summary: "Alas, / We loved sir—used to The speaker's imagery gives readers a simultaneous picture of
meet." This is more like the usual language of a confession. his cluttered sickroom and his childhood hometown.

But readers might suspect that the speaker's rueful "Alas" is As the poem begins, the speaker is lying on his deathbed,
less about how he knows he shouldn't have had this secret irritated by a priest "buzzing" in his ears—an image that
romance and more about how this romance is now only a long- suggests the priest is coming in close to whisper a few last
ago memory. That suspicion might grow as the speaker closes sober questions to this sick man. It seems to take the speaker a
his tale out with these lines: moment to figure out exactly what's going on. Both his ears and
his eyes are fuddled by his illness; he can no longer even tell if
How sad and bad and mad it was— his curtains are "blue / Or green to a healthy eye."
But then, how it was sweet! Even as his capacity to see the world around him fades, he has a
keen vision of his past. That vague bluish greenish curtain
Not one word the speaker has said so far suggests that he truly becomes a clear June sky, "blue above lane and wall," when he
feels anything was "sad and bad and mad" about this romance. starts remembering the street where his secret girlfriend lived.
His intense internal rh
rhyme
yme and polysyndeton
polysyndeton—not just "sad, The speaker's memories of the June when his girlfriend used to
bad, and mad," but "sad and bad and mad"!—might even make sneak out and meet him involve a clear map of exactly how he
him sound a touch mocking here. Sure, he knows he shouldn't used to get to her house, "creeping very close" to a convenient
have had a clandestine relationship with a girl whose parents concealing wall and meeting her under a picturesque "rose-
hated him. Yet the only really "sad" thing here seems to be that wreathed gate."
this sweet June romance is so long ago and far away now. As compared to his vague impression of his not-altogether-
pleasant surroundings now, the speaker's images of his past
feel simultaneously precise and rose-colored, tinted with his
SYMBOLS nostalgia for a sweet summertime romance.

GOING UPHILL Where Imagery appears in the poem:

Whenever the speaker sees his girlfriend, he has to • Line 1: “What is he buzzing in my ears?”
scramble uphill to do it: she waits for him in the attic • Line 9: “That lane sloped, much as the bottles do,”
of the tallest house at the top of a hilly street. All that elevation • Lines 11-12: “is the curtain blue / Or green to a healthy
symbolizes the social distance between the couple. The eye?”
girlfriend's snobby family, who call their house "The Lodge" and • Lines 13-14: “the old June weather / Blue above lane
keep a suspicious eye out for no-good boyfriends, see and wall;”
themselves as above the speaker (and probably most people on • Lines 26-27: “by creeping very close, / With the good
their street, too). wall's help,”
The girlfriend herself has no such scruples: she's eager to creep • Line 33: “the rose-wreathed gate”
down the stairs and out into the street to meet the speaker by
the "rose-wreathed gate." In other words, the two meet in the REPETITION
middle, on level ground: their summer romance flattens out Repetitions lay some extra emphasis on the poem's poignant or
their class difference. dramatic moments.
A moment of anaphor
anaphoraa, for instance, launches the speaker into
Where this symbol appears in the poem: the memories that will fill most of the poem:
• Lines 9-11: “That lane sloped, much as the bottles do, /
From a house you could descry / O'er the garden-wall;” What I viewed there once, what I view again
• Line 16: “Is the house o'ertopping all.”
• Line 17: “At a terrace, somewhere near the stopper,” This repetition brings the speaker's past into the present. His
• Lines 30-33: “As she left the attic, there, / By the rim of memories of a happy, clandestine June romance are more
the bottle labelled "Ether," / And stole from stair to stair, / present to him than the sickroom around him now; he can
And stood by the rose-wreathed gate.” "view" what he once "viewed" as plain as day.
As he drifts into his memories, he uses that sickroom as a kind

©2022 LitCharts LLC v.007 www.LitCharts.com Page 5

 Get hundreds more LitCharts at www.litcharts.com
of miniature stage set on which to play out his past. A row of they looked like the letter O, and still not catch us."
medicine bottles becomes the lane he used to sneak along to That mention of the letter O introduces a pun on those "eeyes es,"
meet his girlfriend; the "farthest bottle labelled 'Ether'" turning them into letter "II"s! This is a quick, clever, throwaway
becomes her family's elegant home. That "bottle labelled joke—but it neatly char
characterizes
acterizes the speaker. He's just as
Ether" will return in line 31, the repetition reminding readers pleased to get away with a swift pun as he is to get away with an
that the speaker is close to death, and probably suffering: ether unseen kiss or two under the "rose-wreathed gate": his
is a potent anesthetic. Though the speaker seems more language is as brisk, neat, and limber as his sneaking.
interested in past pleasure than present pain, this repetition
This pun thus helps to support the poem's general tone of
gives this poem a poignant edge, stressing that the speaker's
mingled nostalgia and mischief. This speaker enjoyed doing
fond memories of this girl might be the last and best
something slightly naughty then, and he enjoys talking about
consolation he has.
his past naughtiness now.
Of course, he knows that by most of society's standards, his
youthful romance (forbidden by his sweetheart's parents) was
Where Pun appears in the poem:
"sad and bad and mad." The polysyndeton there works
alongside those punchy internal rhrhymes
ymes to suggest that the • Lines 27-28: “their eyes might strain / And stretch
speaker isn't being altogether sincere as he condemns his themselves to Oes”
young self: there's something a little hyperbolic about those
forceful "and"s and those forceful rhymes. SYNECDOCHE
That sense that the speaker isn't totally repentant is even A moment of synecdoche paints a picture of the snobby,
clearer in the poem's closing moment of anaphora: suspicious, conventional world the young speaker and his
sweetheart are up against.
How sad and bad and mad it was— When the speaker remembers sneaking over to his girlfriend's
But then, how it was sweet! house, he gives a lot of details about how he stayed out of sight,
"creeping very close" to a convenient sheltering wall and
In these two similarly-structured phrases, sweetness gets the waving to his girlfriend as she waited in an attic window. All that
last word. subterfuge was necessary because her house was full of
watchful "eyes."
Where Repetition appears in the poem:
These eyes are a synecdoche for their disapproving owners:
• Line 5: “What I viewed there once, what I view again” the girl's parents, certainly, and perhaps other members of the
• Line 15: “that farthest bottle labelled "Ether"” household, like suspicious siblings or menacing housekeepers.
• Line 23: “Eyes in the house, two eyes except:” The idea of all these vigilant figures also helps to give an idea of
• Line 31: “By the rim of the bottle labelled "Ether,"” the time period: this is clearly Browning's own 19th century,
• Line 35: “How sad and bad and mad it was—” when young ladies were most certainly not meant to have
• Line 36: “how it was sweet!” secret boyfriends!
By reducing the watchers in the house to their eyes, the
PUN speaker suggests that these aren't just mistrustful people
A neat little pun evokes the speaker's youthful satisfaction jealously guarding the young lady, but people who are
when his enemies—that is, his girlfriend's parents—fail to catch concerned above all with how things look. With their fancy
him. house (pretentiously dubbed "The Lodge") and their
The speaker recalls that his girlfriend's family was none too disapproval of "lounger[s]" like the speaker, these living
fond of him; if they spotted him when he snuck out to meet with eyeballs seem snobbish, mean, and rather shallow. They have all
their daughter, he would have been in big trouble. Luckily for the eyes; the speaker and his girlfriend have all the heart.
him, a handy (and personified
personified) "good wall" was there to "help." The speaker's challenge, then, is to evade those shallow eyes
When he was in its shadow, it didn't matter how hard his while meeting the only "two eyes" that matter to him: his
enemies looked for him: girlfriend's.

[...] their eyes might strain Where Synecdoche appears in the poem:
And stretch themselves to Oes,
• Lines 21-23: “you crept / Close by the side, to dodge /
Yet never catch her and me together, Eyes in the house, two eyes except”

In other words, "they could stretch their eyes so wide open that

©2022 LitCharts LLC v.007 www.LitCharts.com Page 6

 Get hundreds more LitCharts at www.litcharts.com
ALLUSION Physic bottles (Line 6) - Bottles of medicine.
The poem's allusions help to set the stage for the speaker's tale, Descry (Line 10) - Catch a glimpse of.
conjuring up a sternly moral Victorian world. O'er (Line 11) - A contraction of "over."
The priest who comes to hear the speaker's last confession in Ether (Line 15, Line 31) - A strong anesthetic (still a fairly
the first stanza asks him a conventional question: does the newfangled technology when Browning wrote this poem!).
speaker "view the world as a vale of tears?" (In other words:
O'ertopping (Line 16) - Rising over the tops of. In other words,
does he see the world as a place of trials and sufferings?) That
this house was at the very top of the hill, higher than any other.
language is borrowed from an ancient Christian hymn, "Salve
Regina," in which humanity asks for the Virgin Mary to relieve Terrace (Line 17) - An open balcony (here, one up at the top of
their suffering in this "valley of tears." The implication is that the house near the attic, where the girlfriend can watch for the
the world is a pretty tough place, one that most people might speaker unseen!).
be relieved to leave behind for the joys of heaven. This speaker, Styled (Line 24) - Officially titled. (There are connotations of
however, seems pretty comfortable in this world: he firmly tells snobbishness here: it's a rather haughty move to give your
the priest that he's found more pleasure than tears here. suburban house a fancy name of its own.)
That might seem particularly remarkable in light of the fact that Stretch themselves to Oes (Line 28) - In other words, the
this speaker is dying—and by all indications, dying in pain. girlfriend's parents might look for the sneaky speaker so hard
Among the medicine bottles on his table, the biggest is the one that their eyes became as round as the letter O.
full of ether (a powerful anesthetic). All that painkiller suggests
Stole (Line 32) - Crept, sneaked, tiptoed.
that the speaker is suffering, but he refuses to let his pain
reshape his opinions of life or take away the bliss of his Mad (Line 35) - In the sense of "crazy," not "angry."
remembered romance.
Ether also helps to set the scene. When Browning wrote this
poem, ether (and anesthesia in general) was a relativ
relatively
ely
FORM, METER, & RHYME
newfangled technology
technology; because it can be dangerous, it's rarely FORM
used now. The ether bottles make it clear that this poem takes
place in Browning's own world. "Confessions" is one of Browning's trademark dramatic
monologues: poems spoken in the voice of a particular
So does a specific brand of class snobbery. The girlfriend's character. This speaker, a dying man confessing the story of his
parents don't just dislike the speaker because it's "improper" young love to a priest, tells his tale over the course of nine
that he should hang around their daughter. They also seem to jaunty quatr
quatrains
ains (or four-line stanzas).
dislike him because he's a "lounger," a layabout, and they're the
suburban upper crust. When the speaker remembers that "they This deathbed confession sounds more cheerful than contrite.
styled their house 'The Lodge,'" he's hinting at a particular kind The poem's bouncy accentual meter and singsong ABAB rh rhyme
yme
of snobbishness: this family, who live in the fanciest house in scheme make it clear that the speaker doesn't feel too
the street, have also given their house a name that sets it apart remorseful about how he and his beloved "used to meet" in
from the rest of the street. They're not just Number 27, no: spite of her parents' disapproval. He's relishing these memories
even as he makes his last confession to the (perhaps rather
they're The Lodge.
reproachful) priest.
As the speaker remembers, though, neither God nor man could
keep him and his girlfriend apart! The poem's allusions to METER
Victorian convention all suggest that love easily overthrows "Confessions" is written in accentual meter. That means that
whatever obstacles you put in its way. the lines don't stick to a single kind of metrical foot (like iambs
or trochees
trochees), but they do use a regular number of stresses.
Where Allusion appears in the poem: Here, the speaker alternates between lines with four stressed
beats and lines with three stressed beats, as in the first stanza:
• Line 3: “Do I view the world as a vale of tears?"”
• Line 15: “And that farthest bottle labelled "Ether"”
• Line 24: “They styled their house "The Lodge."” What is he buzz
buzzing in my ears
ears?
"Now
Now that I come to die
die,
Do I view the world as a vale of tears
tears?"
Ah, re
revverend sir
sir, not I!
VOCABULARY
This flexible meter helps the speaker's voice to sound light,
Reverend (Line 4) - Honored, holy.
natural, and jaunty. He's not sticking to a strict, elegant form;

©2022 LitCharts LLC v.007 www.LitCharts.com Page 7

 Get hundreds more LitCharts at www.litcharts.com
rather, he's telling a tale he knows by heart, perhaps getting only sometimes remembers that the "bottle labelled 'Ether'" is
some naughty fun out of shocking the priest he's "confessing" indeed a medicine bottle, not his girlfriend's elegant family
to. The bouncy, propulsive rhythm suggests he's getting caught home.
up in his fond memories, carried happily away into the past. He remembers very clearly, however, the geography of the
RHYME SCHEME street where his girlfriend lived—and the classism that tried to
keep the two of them apart. The girl's family, he notes, "styled
The poem's rh
rhyme
yme scheme runs like this in each stanza: their house 'The Lodge," pretentiously giving their home its
ABAB own name, and felt a "lounger" like him had no right to come
This singsong pattern makes the speaker's deathbed anywhere near their daughter. To his delight, that didn't stop
confession sound awfully cheerful. He might be telling an her from sneaking out to meet him!
"improper" tale of illicit love to a scandalized priest, but he The poem's setting suggests that memory—and especially
clearly doesn't feel much remorse: the simple sweetness of his happy memory—can often feel more real, more alive, and more
rhymes reflects the simple sweetness of his memories. compelling than the present.
One of the poem's most distinctive rhyme moments doesn't
come from its end rh
rhymes
ymes, but a run of internal rh
rhymes
ymes in the
poem's final stanza: CONTEXT
How sad and bad and mad it was—
LITERARY CONTEXT
Robert Browning (1812-1889) was a great Victorian
All those short, flat rhymes in a row sound a tiny bit silly, a tiny writer—and one quite unlike those around him. Considered a
bit mocking: the speaker clearly finds his youthful romance's minor poet for most of his early career, Browning became
"sweet[ness]" far more lasting and important than its sadness, famous toward the end of his life for his wild dr
dramatic
amatic
badness, and madness. monologues
monologues: theatrical poems spoken in the voices of
characters ranging from murderous Italian duk dukes
es to good-
hearted 16th-century soldiers
soldiers. This poem's nostalgic,
SPEAKER cheerfully naughty speaker (who first appeared in Browning's
1864 collection Dramatis Personae) is one of the sweeter
The poem's speaker is an elderly man lying on his deathbed—a figures in a gallery of scoundrels
scoundrels.
sweet old fellow who nonetheless seems to enjoy shocking the
Many of Browning's contemporaries didn't quite know what to
priest who comes to visit him. The speaker might know that, in
do with his poetry, which—with its experimental rhythms and
some sense, his youthful relationship was "sad and mad and
sometimes earthy language—rarely conformed to the elegant
bad" in the eyes of the world, but to him, its remembered
standards of his time. Many suggested that he'd make a better
delights outweigh any worries about propriety or sin.
novelist than a poet. Even Oscar Wilde
Wilde, a great Browning
Readers might be tempted to see a little of Browning himself in enthusiast, couldn't resist quipping that "[George] Meredith is a
this character. Like the speaker, Browning enjoyed a forbidden prose Browning, and so is Browning." The Modernist poets of
love affair, though his was a serious and lasting one: he eloped the early 20th century, though, admired Browning's poetry for
to Italy with his wife, fellow poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Browning, the very strangeness and narrative vigor that put so many of
after her father forbade the couple to marry. Perhaps in a the Victorians off.
nostalgic mood himself, he published this poem three years
Browning's greatest influence was, without question, his
after his wife's death.
beloved wife, Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Browning, whose poetry he
deeply admired. This literary duo critiqued and championed
SETTING each other's work for 14 happy years of marriage. But like
many Victorian writers, Browning also followed in the lyrical
The poem takes place in the speaker's sickroom, where he lies and imaginative footsteps of the earlier Romantic poets. As a
dying. Through his eyes, readers see this cluttered room of young man, he particularly respected Shelle
Shelleyy as both a poet and
"physic bottles" transformed into the suburban street he grew a radical political thinker.
up on, the place where he and a girl-next-door enjoyed a secret While Browning was ahead of his time in many ways, more and
summer romance. more writers and thinkers learned to admire and appreciate his
The speaker's impressions of that street are a lot clearer than work as the 19th century rolled into its final years. His
his impressions of his bedroom. He's not sure whether his reputation has only grown since his death.
curtains would look "blue / Or green to a healthy eye," and he

©2022 LitCharts LLC v.007 www.LitCharts.com Page 8

 Get hundreds more LitCharts at www.litcharts.com
HISTORICAL CONTEXT (https:/
(https://www
/www.bl.uk/learning/langlit/poetryperformance/
.bl.uk/learning/langlit/poetryperformance/
browning/josephinehart/aboutbrowning.html)
This nostalgic speaker's memories of a forbidden love affair
may well draw on Browning's own experiences. Browning was a • Browning's Influence — Read an appreciation of Browning
deeply romantic man, and he lived out one of literature's most that discusses what he means to writers today.
touching love stories. (https:/
(https://www
/www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/
.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/
In 1845, Browning paid his first visit to a rising star in the ma
mayy/06/browning-poetry-bicentenary-dick
/06/browning-poetry-bicentenary-dickens)
ens)
literary world: Elizabeth Barrett. Unusually for a woman writer • Portr
ortraits
aits of the Brownings — Visit the National Portrait
of the time, Barrett had become wildly famous; Browning was Gallery's collection of Browning portraiture for a glimpse
only one of many readers to be moved by her soulful, elegant of the great (and forbidden!) love affair that may have
poetry. He wrote her a fan letter, and the two began a warm inspired this poem: Browning's relationship with his
correspondence. Eventually, they fell deeply in love. beloved wife, fellow poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning.
Barrett's tyrannical father was having none of it, however. (https:/
(https://www
/www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/person/
.npg.org.uk/collections/search/person/
Besides preferring to keep his talented daughter (and her mp00603/robert-browning)
earnings) to himself, he disapproved of Browning, who was LITCHARTS ON OTHER ROBERT BROWNING
several years younger than Barrett—unconventional in a
POEMS
Victorian marriage—and not yet a commercially successful
writer himself. In order to defy Mr. Barrett, the couple had to • Home-Thoughts, from Abroad
elope; they left England for Italy in 1846. Outraged, Elizabeth's • How the
theyy Brought the Good News from Ghent to Aix
father disinherited her. • Life in a LLo
ove
• Love in a Life
The newlywed Brownings, undaunted, set up house in • Meeting at Night
Florence, where they would live happily for over a decade • My Last Duchess
before Elizabeth fell ill. She died in Robert's arms at the age of • Porph
orphyria
yria's's LLo
over
only 55. • The Bishop Orders His T Tomb
omb at Saint Pr
Prax
axed's
ed's Church
Browning would publish this poem three years after her • The Labor
Laboratory
atory
death—perhaps in much the same nostalgic (and defiant) frame • The Last Ride T Together
ogether
of mind as his speaker. • The LLost
ost LLeader
eader
• The PPatriot
atriot

MORE RESOUR
RESOURCES
CES
HOW T
TO
O CITE
EXTERNAL RESOURCES
• The PPoem
oem Aloud — Listen to a reading of the poem. MLA
(https:/
(https:///youtu.be/9u8fCP
outu.be/9u8fCPeixLk)
eixLk) Nelson, Kristin. "Confessions." LitCharts. LitCharts LLC, 21 Jul
2022. Web. 27 Jul 2022.
• A Brief Biogr
Biograph
aphyy — Visit the Poetry Foundation's website
to learn more about Browning's life and work. CHICAGO MANUAL
(https:/
(https://www
/www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/robert-
.poetryfoundation.org/poets/robert-
browning) Nelson, Kristin. "Confessions." LitCharts LLC, July 21, 2022.
Retrieved July 27, 2022. https://www.litcharts.com/poetry/
• Browning's LLegacy
egacy — Learn how Browning's work finally robert-browning/confessions.
rose to acclaim at the end of his life (and enjoy novelist
Henry James's witty mock-epitaph for him).

©2022 LitCharts LLC v.007 www.LitCharts.com Page 9