Porphyria's lover-Robert browning

• "The rain set early in to-night, The sullen wind was soon awake"


  These lines set the scene with the well-worn Romantic trope of the dark and stormy night. The speaker subtly personifies the wind as “sullen” and violent, foreshadowing his own evident gloominess that will later awaken into passionate violence against his lover.
• "When glided in Porphyria; straight She shut the cold out and the storm"


  Porphyria’s entrance into the poem is marked by metrical disruption. Her very name, “Por- phy -ri-a,” subtly disrupts the poem’s iambic rhythm. Her arrival also disturbs the alignment between discrete grammatical units and lines of verse.
• "Happy and proud; at last I knew Porphyria worshipped me"


  These lines express the speaker’s realization of Porphyria’s love for him. The speaker feels happy and proud, and this realization makes his heart swell.
• "That moment she was mine, mine, fair, Perfectly pure and good: I found A thing to do, and all her hair"


  This quote shows the speaker’s possessiveness over Porphyria. He sees her as his own, pure and good. The phrase “I found A thing to do” ominously foreshadows his subsequent actions.
• "And strangled her. No pain felt she; I am quite sure she felt no pain."


  This is the shocking moment where the speaker kills Porphyria. He insists that she felt no pain, perhaps as a way to justify his actions to himself.
• The poem is a dramatic monologue that explores themes of love, obsession, and control. The speaker’s actions reveal a disturbing desire to possess and control his lover, even to the point of death.