How can "Meeting at Night" be described as Victorian?

VICTORIANISM IN 'MEETING AT NIGHT'
The age of Victorianism, correlating with the 1837 to 1901 reign of England's Queen Victoria, was an age that spanned great optimism and great pessimism born of great social and philosophical turmoil. Optimism and confidence sprang from the prowess of the United Kingdom as it became the greatest power on earth with the greatest wealth, navy, colonies and industrialization. Pessimism and turmoil sprang from the moral and human conflicts bred in overly congested unsanitary cities where crime and disease reigned, and babies died more often than they lived; from religious questionings and upheavals, such as those stemming from David Strauss's "historical Jesus" stripped of his divinity, Tractarians challenging the informality of Anglicanism, and nonconforming Evangelicals, like John Wesley, introducing new visions of personal purity; from scientific discoveries, such as those in geology and archeology and evolution, that called age-old religious belief and literalism into question. While optimism flavored the first decade of Victorianism, by the end of the period of the Industrial Revolution (c. 1850), pessimism had begun to reign.
Browning published some of his earliest poems on the cusp between these two philosophical mind-sets, optimism and pessimism, and on the verge of the merging of Victorianism and Industrialism. "Meeting at Night" is an example of this historical positioning of Browning's work since it was published (as "I. Night") in 1845. Heavily influenced by the poetic age preceding his own, Browning embraced the Romantic period emphasis on both beauty and hope. For this reason, he defined the Victorian conflict between optimism and pessimism as the conflict between facets of human nature. He was protected from pessimism by his acceptance of the Romantic tenet of transcendence over the uninspired through "Nature" and "Beauty."
In "Meeting," when analyzed as a separate entity from "Parting at Morning," Browning's personal optimism is apparent although it is a bit strained to go so far as to say that "Victorian optimism" is apparent: There is no sociocultural context to "Meeting at Night" at all when analyzed as a poem that is separate from "Parting at Morning." The scenario described in "Meeting" might have been as aptly true during the Renaissance as it might be aptly true during our own time (especially now that many are going "off the grid," making candles and matches less of an anomaly): There is no sociocultural reflection of Victorianism in the text of "Meeting at Night."
The Victorian elements that might be said to be apparent in "Meeting" relate to poetic style. If the love poem is considered by itself, the narrative it tells of the adventuresome secret assignation between lovers fits any historic period. Yet the diction and vocabulary show Victorian influence. Wordsworth gave birth to the Romantic period by defining great poetry, in part, as that which is without high poetic diction; as that which can be read by any literate person; as that which uses the language of common speech (a point of contention between Romantic icons Wordsworth and Coleridge). The simple, though highly sensory, everyday diction, with brisk imagery, that Browning employs in "Meeting" heralds its Romantic influence and Victorian origins.
Although Browning employs the literary technique of pathetic fallacy (a form of personification specific to nature), e.g., "startled little waves," his use of nature treats those elements as natural forces in the Victorian mode; these are not inspirational forces of "Nature" such as Romantics would present them to be. To the contrary, Browning's presentation of natural elements does not call forth the Romantic lament of humanity's loss of unity with Nature and the consequent need for Nature's inspiring power. Rather Browning's nature calls forth an image of the persona's labor enjoined with natural forces, for example, enjoined with the "startled little waves" "pushing [the] prow" in "the slushy sand." Further, these forces of nature--the "little waves" and the "slushy sand" and the "mile of sea-scented beach"--do not present resistance or obstacles, as would be expected from later Naturalism and Realism, but rather they reflect the neutral scientific perspective of the Victorian Age.