Love Among the Ruins ( poem ) - wikipedia Love Among the Ruins ( poem ) Love Among the Ruins illustration, by Edward Burne - Jones, circa 1873 `` Love Among the Ruins '' is an 1855 poem by Robert Browning. It is the first poem in the collection Men and Women. Overview The poem begins : Where the quiet - coloured end of evening smiles, Miles and miles On the solitary pastures where our sheep Half - asleep Tinkle homeward thro ' the twilight, stray or stop As they crop -- - Was the site once of a city great and gay, ( So they say ) Of our country 's very capital, its prince Ages since Held his court in, gathered councils, wielding far Peace or war. Browning here employs an unusual structure of rhyming couplets in which long trochaic lines are paired with short lines of three syllables. This may be related to the theme of the poem, a comparison between love and material glory. The speaker, overlooking a pasture where sheep graze, recalls that once a great ancient city, his country 's capital, stood there. After spending four stanzas describing the beauty and grandeur of the ancient city, the speaker says that `` a girl with eager eyes and yellow hair / Waits me there '', and that `` she looks now, breathless, dumb / Till I come. '' The speaker, after musing further on the glory of the city and thinking of how he will greet his lover, closes by rejecting the majesty of the old capital and preferring instead his love : Oh heart ! oh blood that freezes, blood that burns ! Earth 's returns For whole centuries of folly, noise and sin ! Shut them in, With their triumphs and their glories and the rest ! Love is best. In culture Browning 's poem inspired or gave its title to many subsequent works, including a painting by Edward Burne - Jones, a 1975 TV - movie with Katharine Hepburn and Laurence Olivier, an episode of the American TV series Mad Men, and an album and song by the band 10,000 Maniacs. The poem is quoted by the character Rupert Birkin in Women in Love, a novel by D.H. Lawrence. The title of the poem is also made the title of a novella by the British satirist Evelyn Waugh. External links Full text from an 1856 edition of Men and Women Text of the poem, with analysis Analysis Robert Browning Plays Paracelsus ( 1835 ) Strafford ( 1837 ) Pippa Passes ( 1841 ) King Victor and King Charles ( 1842 ) The Return of the Druses ( 1843 ) A Blot in the ' Scutcheon ( 1843 ) Colombe 's Birthday ( 1844 ) Luria ( 1846 ) A Soul 's Tragedy ( 1846 ) In a Balcony ( 1855 ) Poetry collections and poems Pauline : A Fragment of a Confession ( 1833 ) `` Porphyria 's Lover '' ( 1836 ) `` Johannes Agricola in Meditation '' ( 1836 ) Sordello ( 1840 ) Dramatic Lyrics ( 1842, `` My Last Duchess '', `` Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister '', `` Count Gismond '' ) Dramatic Romances and Lyrics ( 1845, `` Home - Thoughts, from Abroad '', `` How They Brought the Good News from Ghent to Aix '', `` Meeting at Night '', `` The Laboratory '', `` The Lost Leader '' ) Christmas - Eve and Easter - Day ( 1850 ) Men and Women ( 1855, `` Love Among the Ruins '', `` Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came '', `` Andrea del Sarto '', `` Fra Lippo Lippi '', `` A Toccata of Galuppi 's '' ) Dramatis Personae ( 1864, `` Rabbi ben Ezra '', `` Caliban upon Setebos '' ) The Ring and the Book ( 1868 - 9 ) Balaustion 's Adventure ( 1871 ) Prince Hohenstiel - Schwangau, Saviour of Society ( 1871 ) Fifine at the Fair ( 1872 ) Red Cotton Night - Cap Country ( 1873 ) Aristophanes ' Apology ( 1875 ) The Inn Album ( 1875 ) Pacchiarotto, and How He Worked in Distemper ( 1876 ) The Agamemnon of Aeschylus ( 1877 ) La Saisiaz and The Two Poets of Croisic ( 1878 ) Dramatic Idyls ( 1879, 1880 ) Jocoseria ( 1883 ) Ferishtah 's Fancies ( 1884 ) Parleyings with Certain People of Importance in Their Day ( 1887 ) Asolando ( 1889 ) Related Browning Society Armstrong Browning Library, collections and papers Clasped Hands of Robert and Elizabeth Barrett Browning ( 1853 sculpture ) The Barretts of Wimpole Street 1934 film 1957 film Family life Elizabeth Barrett Browning ( wife ) Robert Barrett Browning ( son ) Casa Guidi Retrieved from `` https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Love_Among_the_Ruins_(poem)&oldid=819083330 '' Categories : Poetry by Robert Browning 1855 poems British poems Talk About Wikipedia Wikisource Français Edit links This page was last edited on 7 January 2018, at 09 : 16. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution - ShareAlike License ; additional terms may apply. By using this site, you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Wikipedia ® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization. About Wikipedia

Question: what type of poem is love among the ruins
Answer: rhyming couplets in which long trochaic lines are paired with short lines of three syllables