Two in the Campagna

What do we know about this poem?What does the title tell us?

This poem is about...

"Infinite passion, and the pain Of finite hearts that yearn."

“Two in the Campagna” explores the fleeting nature of love and ideas. The speaker is a man who yearns for the ultimate union with his lover. He regrets that, just as he cannot ever perfectly capture an idea, he cannot achieve total communion with his lover, despite the helpful erotic suggestions of nature. Though our hearts be finite, we yearn infinitely; the resulting pain serves as a reminder of human limitations.

"There is a solemnity and beauty about the Campagna entirely its own. To the reflective mind, this ghost of old Rome is full of suggestion; its vast, almost limitless extent as it seems to the traveller; its abundant herbage and floral wealth in early spring; its desolation, its crumbling monuments, and its evidences of a vanished civilization, fill the mind with a sweet sadness, which readily awakens the longing for the infinite spoken of in the poem." (Berdoe, ‘Browning Cyclopaedia’)

Context: The Roman CampagnaThe “Campagna” refers to the countryside around Rome. Until the middle of the twentieth century it grew fairly wild and unclaimed. Because its swampy areas nurtured mosquitoes carrying malaria, the conventional English tourist largely avoided the Campagna, leaving it to the Italian peasants, who farmed sections of it. However, in nineteenth-century literature the Campagna also symbolized a sort of alternative space, where rules of society did not apply and anything could happen. Cf. Pastoral poetry.

In this poem, the Campagna seems to suggest to the speaker that he can in fact transcend his human limitations to put his subtle ideas into poetry or see the world through his lover’s eyes. However, in suggesting this the wild space merely plays a cruel trick; teased and disappointed, the speaker is left more melancholy than ever.

Language and Imagery

II wonder do you feel today As I have felt since, hand in hand,We sat down on the grass, to stray In spirit better through the land,This morn of Rome and May? 5

IIFor me, I touched a thought, I know Has tantalised me many times,(Like turns of thread the spiders throw Mocking across our path) for rhymesTo catch at and let go. 10

IIIHelp me to hold it! First it left The yellowing fennel, run to seedThere, branching from the brickwork's cleft, Some old tomb's ruin: yonder weedTook up the floating weft, 15

IVWhere one small orange cup amassed Five beetles, - blind and green they gropeAmong the honey-meal: and last, Everwhere on the grassy slopeI traced it. Hold it fast! 20

herb

Thread/ interweaving; crossing from side to side

opening

‘cup’ of a flower

nectar

VThe champaign with its endless fleece Of feathery grasses everywhere!Silence and passion, joy and peace, An everlasting wash of air –Rome's ghost since her decease. 25

VISuch life here, through such lengths of hours, Such miracles performed in play,Such primal naked forms of flowers, Such letting nature have her wayWhile heaven looks from its towers! 30

Flat, open countryside

VIIHow say you? Let us, O my dove, Let us be unashamed of soul,As earth lies bare to heaven above! How is it under our controlTo love, or not to love? 35

VIIII would that you were all to me, You that are just so much, no more, Nor yours nor mine, nor slave nor free! Where does the fault lie? What the coreO' the wound, since wound must be? 40

I wish(sense of uncertainty)

IXI would I could adopt your will, See with your eyes, and set my heartBeating by yours, and drink my fill At your soul's springs, - your part my partIn life, for good or ill. 45

XNo. I yearn upward, touch you close, Then stand away. I kiss your cheek,Catch your soul's warmth, - I pluck the rose And love it more than tongue can speak –Then the good minute goes. 50

I wish(sense of uncertainty; impossibility)

XIAlready how am I so far Out of that minute? Must I goStill like the thistle-ball, no bar, Onward, wherever light winds blowFixed by no friendly star? 55

XIIJust when I seemed about to learn! Where is the thread now? Off again!The old trick! Only I discern – Infinite passion, and the painOf finite hearts that yearn. 60

Form

• Dramatic monologue but seems like a soliloquy – his lover is present but does not speak

• Is he really meditating on his inability to sustain the moment of connection with his lover?

• Flowing lines and enjambment represent thoughts spilling over, out into the fields of the Campagna

• The romantic ideal is overwhelmed by reality: the human heart beats alone

Structure

• 12 stanzas of 5 lines each• First four lines in tetrameter (4 feet) and final line in

trimeter (3 feet)• Rhyme pattern: ababa• Regular layout and rhyme pattern = lover’s repeated

attempts to capture a harmony with his lover• Enjambment means sentence breaks do not necessarily

coincide with line breaks – this weakens the rhyme• Sections of poem in regular iambs but this often breaks

down: the speaker can’t quite capture this, just like he can’t capture his lover