Evelyn Hope by Robert Browning
Beside sixteen-year-old Evelyn Hope's body, a speaker three times her age declares a love she may never have known. The speaker trusts that God will allow their union after further lives and places a leaf in her cold hand, believing she will someday awaken and understand.
By Robert Browning · Genre: Dramatic Monologue, Elegy, Love Poetry · 681 words
First lines
Beautiful Evelyn Hope is dead! / Sit and watch by her side an hour. / That is her book-shelf, this her bed; / She plucked that piece of geranium-flower, / Beginning to die too, in the glass; / Little has yet been changed, I think: / The shutters are shut, no light may pass / Save two long rays through the hinge's chink.
Sixteen years old when she died! / Perhaps she had scarcely heard my name; / It was not her time to love; beside, / Her life had many a hope and aim, / Duties enough and little cares, / And now was quiet, now astir, / Till God's hand beckoned unawares, -- / And the sweet white brow is all of her.
What this Textopian page supports
Evelyn Hope is listed on Textopian as a poem by Robert Browning, dated Date unknown.
This source record anchors work identity, reading entry points, and catalog context for checking claims about the work.
- Work type: Poem
- Author: Robert Browning
- Date: Date unknown
- Language: English
- Genres: Dramatic Monologue, Elegy, Love Poetry
- Length: 681 words
- Structure: 1 section, 7 paragraphs
- Reading fit: Easy (6th Grade)
Good citation fit
- Work identity for Evelyn Hope by Robert Browning
- Canonical title URL and first readable passage URL
- Genre and topic classification from the Textopian catalog
- Readability and classroom-planning context
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Genres
- Dramatic Monologue — A single speaker addresses the dead Evelyn, revealing an age disparity, an unacknowledged love, and expectations of a future union.
- Elegy — The speaker watches beside Evelyn's body, recalls her brief life, and seeks consolation in the belief that death postpones their union.
- Love Poetry — The speaker declares enduring love for Evelyn and imagines a future life in which she will understand it.
Tags
mourning · unacknowledged love · afterlife · age disparity · faith · dramatic monologue