And he continued to write. In 1844, being then thirty-two, he met Elizabeth Barrett, the invalid poetess with whose work he was already familiar, and from the first his heart went out to her. For some time she steadily refused to listen when he talked of marriage, on account of her ill health. But his persistence wore down her half-hearted resistance, especially as her happiness in the knowledge of his love proved a good doctor, and she showed signs of growing stronger. Her father, who seems to have objected to any of his daughters marrying, had made up his mind that Elizabeth would never leave home, and it was certain he would never have given his consent. So with some misgivings Miss Barrett consented to her lover's entreaties. They were married privately; he took her abroad, and in her newly found joy she rallied surprisingly. To the end of her life she was fragile, and it was never possible for her to stand side by side with him through all the daily ups and downs, but the sympathy between them was as complete as their love for each other was beautiful, and in spite of the many new responsibilities it laid upon him, his marriage with this rare mind brought a daily increasing happiness to the poet. From this time forward much of his time was spent in Italy, for the sake of his wife; but when in 1861, with her death, "the light of his life went out," he returned to London and lived here till the end, always working, always genial, drawn more and more into an ever-widening circle of friends, as the greatness of his mind and genius became known and appreciated. Active to the last, he died in 1889, while on a visit to Venice. But England claimed him as her own, and so strong was the feeling as to the Poets' Corner being the only place where he could be buried, that his son consented, in spite of the fact that Mrs. Browning slept under the blue skies of Italy.
It would be quite impossible now to talk of Robert Browning's poems by name; they are too many in number and too deep in thought to be lightly dealt with. But we can try to understand what it is that has made him so great a figure in English literature, why it is that he has left so powerful an influence on his age.