RKMV

Meeting at Night

Meeting at Night primarily aims to capture the vitality and excitement of romantic love. On a
literal level, the poem tells the story of the speaker’s (the poet persona) long and
clandestine journey through a mysterious coastal landscape. This determined journey
culminates with the speaker finally meeting up with his lover. The poem thus argues that
love is precious and worth striving for, even in the face of significant obstacles.

In the poem, the speaker (the poet persona) describes a mysterious landscape: a dull grey
sea and an expanse of land that looks black in the darkness. The half-moon looms large
and low in the sky, emitting a yellow light. Small waves, being active and playful, appear in
little fiery ringlets, where previously the surface had been calm. The speaker rows into the
bay and brings the vessel to a halt in the wet sand.

Disembarking from the vessel the speaker walks for a mile along the warm beach from
where he can smell the sea. He feels within the warmth of passion emerged from genuine
love. The speaker continues across three fields until reaching a farm. He then knocks gently
on a window pane of the farmhouse, at which point someone else, literally the speaker's
lady-love responds hurriedly by striking a match that bursts into a blue flame. "A voice"—the
voice of the lady-love—talks, overcome with joy and fear. The voice doesn't seem to be as
loud as the sound of the lovers' racing hearts beating together in extreme excitement at the
culmination of their clandestine reunion which they both were longing for. They whispers in
the fear of being overheard or caught, for, it probably is an illicit rendezvous.