The speaker in Robert Browning’s “Prospice” refuses to creep toward death. He imagines it as a storm he must walk straight into: fog in his throat, blasting snow, a “press of the storm.” Death appears as an enemy — the “Arch Fear” — but that only fuels his defiance. He is a fighter to the end, determined to “taste the whole of it” and not creep past bandaged. The mood is bracingly combative, exhilarated by the coming struggle; it’s a warrior’s shout into a gale. Yet the poem doesn’t stay in that roar. In its final lines, the battle-sounds dwindle and blend into a quiet peace, then light, and at last the embrace of a beloved — “thou soul of my soul” — followed by rest in God. That sudden shift from ferocity to tenderness captures a hope so vivid that death becomes not an end, but a doorway.
Prospice — Summary
Fear death? to feel the fog in my throat, The mist in my face, When the snows begin, and the blasts denote I am nearing the place, The power of the night, the press of the storm, The post of the foe; Where he stands, the Arch Fear in a visible form, Yet the strong man must go: For the journey is done and the summit attained, And the barriers fall, Though a battle's to fight ere the guerdon be gained, The reward of it all. I was ever a fighter, so--one fight more, The best and the last!
I would hate that death bandaged my eyes, and forbore, And bade me creep past, No! let me taste the whole of it, fare like my peers The heroes of old, Bear the brunt, in a minute pay glad life's arrears Of pain, darkness, and cold. For sudden the worst turns the best to the brave, The black minute's at end, And the elements' rage, the fiend-voices that rave, Shall dwindle, shall blend, Shall change, shall become first a peace out of pain, Then a light, then thy breast, O thou soul of my soul! I shall clasp thee again, And with God be the rest!