Irony in Porphyria's Lover

Irony can manipulate a reader's emotions but the writer does not want the readers to be confused by what is said and by what is meant. This kind of irony is displayed in "Porphyria's Lover" by Robert Browning. In the poem the speaker said that Porphyria "listened with a heart fir to break" (719) and the writer doesn't actually mean the heart could break while she is listening but that the heart is a weak heart and it could be hurt while she is listening. The next line says Porphyria "glided" (719) but of course someone can't glide somewhere but instead they walk. Then, she also "shut the cold out and the storm" (719) which a person can't shut a storm out because it does not have a door to shut, but instead she may have just ignored the cold and the storm to keep warm. These are only a few examples of irony in this poem but any type of irony can confuse a reader or they may think the meaning is different than the writer wanted it to be interpreted but the good thing about the use of irony is that it gets the reader to analyze a poem for themselves.