Evelyn Hope

This poem is telling a story where beautiful Evelyn hope is dead. Here the speaker is talking about her with his emotions.

Evelyn Hope Poem Analysis

This poem consists of seven stanzas and each in each stanza there are 8 lines. This poem was published in the year of 1855.

Beautiful Evelyn Hope dies

The first line makes the readers very disappointed that in the beginning, the speaker started to say that Evelyn is dead. And then he is saying for an hour the speaker is looking at her side perhaps he is feeling monotonous for this death.

In the next line poet is addressing her bed and books and further creating imagery where she, the young girl plucked a piece of geranium flower. Here maybe the poet wanted to express her with a flower that she plucked.

Then the poet says that there begins the way of death. And poet thinks for himself,

“Little has yet to be changed,”

The shutters of her room are shut which is as dark as death no ray of light can be able to come inside the room. And the next line expressing a deep pathos when the speaker utters to save the daylight that comes from the ‘hinge’s chink’.

Evelyn Hope poem summary

Life is getting dark for the death of the young girl.

In the second stanza, the poet is creating another imagery where he is telling the readers of the girl. When she died she was only sixteen years old and perhaps she knew poet scarcely. Robert Browning is not a very famous name for her.

But this was not the perfect time when she leaves the world because her age is so less to die. Maybe she had hopes and aims in her life that she wanted to fulfill in life. But God does not allow her to do.

Line by line summary & meaning of the poem

These lines are written in a melancholic tone.

Maybe God’s hands beckoned her to go back to heaven. Maybe in her room death was written and she left her parents alone.

In the starting of the next stanza, the speaker is asking to know,

“Is it too late then, Evelyn Hope”

Here poet tries to say maybe Evelyn’s Hope’s are a bit late she needs to think much before. Her soul was pure and true and that is why people can see her ‘horoscope’ because after her death she becomes a star.

These lines provoke the readers to know more about how she died. Now the poet is telling her soul to stay in the morning dew and in the fire.

“I was thrice as old
And our paths in the world diverged so wide”

Here the speaker claims he is thrice older than the girl and God diverged their ways. Poet needs to die fast than the innocent girl but she passed away. Here the poet is thinking for his death he is also getting older.

In the fourth stanza, the speaker addressing God as the Superhuman who is above all fellows. He is granting and mighty. He is the man who created love to get back love. This line is very relevant to the humankind.

Poet is respecting God because now he is thinking that maybe she was not happy and that is why God took her back. Then the poet is creating an image uttering that the world is wide and it makes people learn something and let them forget some incidents.

Maybe time also removes the girl from its chamber. When the poem progresses to deeper it says about the truth of life. Now the speaker is making his speech that time will come and everybody will remember the girl.

“In the lower earth, in the years long still,
That body and soul so pure and Gay?”

So, this line ends with a question that her body will remain so pure or not when many years will pass. Poet is now asking the girl to come in this world again with her geranium’s red lips. Poet for a few times given her description that she has red lips that use to attract people.

In the next segment, the poet is starting to talk on himself. He is leaving for many years and also given time to himself. He ransacked the ages and spoiled the climes. Maybe the poet tries to say about his poems, his poems spoiled the climes. Poet’s soul is full of scopes.

“Either I missed or itself missed me:”

This line is so fantastically written. Poet has hands to write words that symbolize as ‘scopes’ if the poet misses them then they will let the poem be missing. Then he says the poet wants to find the girl and addressing her as ‘Evelyn Hope’.

Poet further explains in the last part of the poem that he loves the girl and asking himself that he can hold her or not by. He is taking her smile in his mind and again says of her red your mouth.

This line has an Oxymoron that is, ‘red young mouth’. He is describing the beauty if her hair which gold in colour.

“…I will give you this leaf to keep:”

This line proves that poet wants to give a leaf on her cold-blooded hands. He wants to let the leaf stay in her cold hands.

“Go to sleep”

Poet is saying. This line proofs the sadness of the poet that is very melancholic. And after that, he is saying when she will wake up from her sleep she will understand and remember. this is the summary of this poem.

Uses of Artistic Devices in Evelyn Hope

The poem expressing the sadness of his mind. This is a melancholic poem full of touching sentiments. Here poet uses ‘Enjambment’ more than one time. Enjambment is a continuation of thoughts to the next paragraph or stanza.

“What is the issue? Let us see!

I loved you, Evelyn, all the while.”

‘Synecdoche’ is another rhetorical device that means one part represents the whole sentence like,

“There was place and to spare for the Frank young smile,

…and the hair’s young gold.”