'O lachrymarum fons, tenero sacros

Ducentium ortus ex animo; quater

Felix! in imo qui scatentem

Pectore te, pia Nympha, sensit.' — GRAY

When Friendship or Love our sympathies move,
   When Truth, in a glance, should appear,
The lips may beguile with a dimple or smile,
   But the test of affection's a Tear:

Too oft is a smile but the hypocrite's wile,
   To mask detestation, or fear;
Give me the soft sigh, whilst the soultelling eye
   Is dimm'd, for a time, with a Tear:

Mild Charity's glow, to us mortals below,
   Shows the soul from barbarity clear;
Compassion will melt, where this virtue is felt,
   And its dew is diffused in a Tear:

The man, doom'd to sail with the blast of the gale,
   Through billows Atlantic to steer,
As he bends o'er the wave which may soon be his grave,
   The green sparkles bright with a Tear;

The Soldier braves death for a fanciful wreath
   In Glory's romantic career;
But he raises the foe when in battle laid low,
   And bathes every wound with a Tear.

If, with high-bounding pride he return to his bride!
   Renouncing the gore-crimson'd spear;
All his toils are repaid when, embracing the maid,
   From her eyelid he kisses the Tear.

Sweet scene of my youth! seat of Friendship and Truth,
   Where Love chas'd each fast-fleeting year
Loth to leave thee, I mourn'd, for a last look I turn'd,
   But thy spire was scarce seen through a Tear:

Though my vows I can pour, to my Mary no more,
   My Mary, to Love once so dear,
In the shade of her bow'r I remember the hour,
   She rewarded those vows with a Tear.

By another possest, may she live ever blest!
   Her name still my heart must revere:
With a sigh I resign what I once thought was mine,
   And forgive her deceit with a Tear.

Ye friends of my heart, ere from you I depart,
   This hope to my breast is most near:
If again we shall meet in this rural retreat,
   May we meet, as we part, with a Tear.

When my soul wings her flight to the regions of night,
   And my corse shall recline on its bier;
As ye pass by the tomb where my ashes consume,
   Oh! moisten their dust with a Tear.

May no marble bestow the splendour of woe
   Which the children of vanity rear;
No fiction of fame shall blazon my name.
   All I ask – all I wish – is a Tear.

October 26 1806

From: http://www.readbookonline.net/readOnLine/3487/

The poem that I choose, The Tear, is a poem of Lord Byron. I chose this poet because he is amongst the most famous of the English 'Romantic' poets. (From: The Life of George Noel Gordon, Lord Byron  ) And I select this poem because apart from it aroused my curiosity. Byron shows in this poem, in my opinion, the true meaning of the tear (it is the culmination of the truest feeling) and at the same time it is about love. Lord Byron was an Anglo-Scottish poet who was considered the leader of the Romantic Movement.   It was written in 1806. It is collected in his book of poems Hours of Idleness, A Series of Poems, Original and Translated (complete title). (From: George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia ). So I can say that belongs to his early works.

First, I start with the interpretation, analysis and comment of the poem on my own words and from my point of view; the poem is about the affective relationships and feelings in general, but specifically it is about Lord Byron’s feeling of love and melancholy. Lord Byron used the concept of "tear" to show it. If we read it paying more attention we will see that the poem is describing in the first and second stanzas that the test of emotion is a tear, the tear express the truest feeling however, other feelings are not truly sincere and honest. In the three following stanzas, it shows us three situations in which the man can shed tears. The seventh stanza is an introductory stanza, as I see it, since it introduces the topic of the poem and it depicts the youth of the author. In the next three stanzas, Lord Byron is expressing her feelings about Mary, He still loves a girl who is named Mary. (Lines: 29-30 of the poem, "... Though my vows I can pour, to my Mary no more, My Mary, to Love once so dear, ..." ).  It seems that she was his girlfriend or lover or something like this of the past and moreover, I can say that he feels nostalgia and melancholy about her. (Lines: 29- 45 of the poem). Finally, in the last two stanzas, in my opinion, I think that Lord Byron was telling us that he did not want fame and a huge marvellous expensive tomb but only he wanted after he dead and if she, Mary, passes by his tomb that she shed a tear because he though that the test of affection is a tear, as we can see in the first stanza. The lines 43 and 44 are written in his epitaph. So we can see the importance that this poem has in his life.

The poem is written in third person until the sixth stanza (inclusive) and the next stanzas are written in first person so I can deduce that the poem may be was autobiographical poem because his reference to Mary ( He loved her, as you can see below). (From: The Life of George Noel Gordon, Lord Byron )

About to the structure of the poem, it is composed by twelve quatrains. It has an assonance cross-rhyme that is to say, the first line of the quatrains rhymes with the third and the second with the fourth and rhyme in assonance in other words, it is repeated the vowel sounds. (As for instance in the second stanza: wile and eye, fear and tear). Something special and strange for me about the poem is that it is published with a quote, it is written in Latin language, of Thomas Gray (he was an English poet also) at first. It means:  O fountain of tears which have their sacred sources in the sensitive soul! Four times blessed he who has felt thee, holy Nymph, bubbling up from the depths of his heart!" (From: Thomas Gray Archive, Alexander Hurber Editor, University of Oxford. http://www.thomasgray.org/cgibin/comment.cgi?text=lt03&fromline=0&toline=0&type=explanatory&sort=annotation )

The vocabulary Lord Byron is using is easy to understand isolated more or less and some words are obsolete for us nowadays and others belongs to the literary camp such as, "ye" in the line 37 and "ere" in the same line; regarding the literary devices, the way in which these words interact is harder to understand. The poem is plenty of figures of speech and tropes but I think that the most important to mention are the repetition at the end of fourth verse of each quatrain of the word tear and the many metaphors that there are in the poem as for example in the first line "When Friendship or Love our sympathies move...".

Putting the poem in relation with the rest of the poet's poetic production (his complete works). I can mention that it belongs to his early works since it was written in 1806 and Lord Byron born in 1788, it was composed only eighteen years before he born. In his Epitaph there is a reference to this poem, as I said before. So we can see the importance of his poem in his posterior live. (From: Lord Byron and Armenians ) It is collected in his book Hours of Idleness, A Series of Poems, Original and Translated, published in 1806. This book was a recollection of some his previous poems and along with more recent compositions. The work has value for what it reveals about the youthful poet's influences, interests, talent, and direction. (From: Poetry Foundation: The online home of the Poetry Foundation ). This book provoked such severe criticism from the Edinburgh Review that Byron replied with English Bards and Scotch Reviewers (1809), a satire in heroic couplets reminiscent of Pope, which brought him immediate fame. (From: The Life of George Noel Gordon, Lord Byron ,  George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia , http://www.bartleby.com/65/by/Byron-Ge.html ). And furthermore, this poem, that I have commented and analysed before, may be related with another poem of him To Mary since is collected on the same book and she is mention in the two poems but however, I do not find this information in any place, just I suppose it. This girl named Mary may be his cousin, Mary Chaworth. She inspired his writings. When she grew tired of "that lame boy," he indulged his grief by writing melancholy poetry and Mary became the symbol of idealized and unattainable love. This melancholy that we have in the poem that I choose is a characteristic of him that many of his poems share it. For example, in the poem And Thou Art Dead, As Young and Fair (1812), where he is talking about youth and how quickly time goes and people die. We can see it clearly when he says at the beginning of the poem: "And thou art dead, as young and fair As aught of mortal birth; And form so soft, and charms so rare, Too soon return’d to Earth! Though Earth receiv’d them in her bed, And o’er the spot the crowd may tread In carelessness or mirth, There is an eye which could not brook A moment on that grave to look". And this tone continues during the rest of the poem. Also in his poems, especially the poems that were published in the same book that the one that I choose; we meet with that spirit of disillusionment which informs much of Byron’s later work. As we can see in his poem, When two parted,        " [...] In secret we met-- In silence I grieve, That thy heart could forget, Thy spirit deceive. If I should meet thee After long years, How should I greet thee? With silence and tears". Later, when he had achieved fame and become the darling of London society, she, Mary, came to regret her rejection. (From: http://aulavirtual.uv.es/register/?return%5furl=%2fdotlrn%2fclasses%2fc006%2f14217%2fc08c006a14217gA%2ffile%2dstorage%2fdownload%2f04Blake%26Byronism%2ehtm%3ffile%255fid%3d25735045

The Life of George Noel Gordon, Lord Byron ). Lord Byron wrote prolifically, he wrote satires and theatre plays apart from his poems and narrative poems. Lord Byron, actually, becomes known because of the publication of the narrative poems Childe Harold's Pilgrimage and Don Juan. Nevertheless, Lord Byron's fame rests not only on his writings but also on his life, which featured extravagant living, numerous love affairs, debts, separation, and allegations of incest and sodomy. (From: George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia , Byron, George Gordon Noel Byron, 6th Baron. The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition. 2001-07)

Regarding to the society and historical moment it was, written or published the poem I can say that, from my point of view, this poem does not reflect the society, rather, I do not see any allusion to the society of his time.  In return, I can notice that the poem indirectly does an allusion to the historical moment of its time, The Romantic Period, since it is a typical romantic poem and Byron is a romantic poet. Byron often focused on the individual self, on the poet’s personal reaction to life. The poem shows one of the basic aims of the romantics the exaltation of the senses and emotions over reason and intellect. (From: romanticism. The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition. 2001-07 ) Lord Byron’s time was the French Revolution and the Industrial Revolution and they were the most important events. The Industrial Revolution was a period in the late 18th and early 19th centuries when major changes in agriculture, manufacturing, and transportation had a profound effect on socioeconomic and cultural conditions in Britain and subsequently spread throughout Europe and North America and eventually the world, a process that continues as industrialisation. The onset of the Industrial Revolution marked a major turning point in human social history, comparable to the invention of farming or the rise of the first city-states; almost every aspect of daily life and human society was eventually influenced in some way. In terms of social structure, the Industrial Revolution witnessed the triumph of a middle class of industrialists and businessmen over a landed class of nobility and gentry. Ordinary working people found increased opportunities for employment in the new mills and factories, but these were often under strict working conditions with long hours of labour dominated by a pace set by machines. However, harsh working conditions were prevalent long before the industrial revolution took place as well. Pre-industrial society was very static and often cruel—child labour, dirty living conditions and long working hours were just as prevalent before the Industrial Revolution.This Industrial revolutions brought an urban industrial society with many problems as individualism, egoism... The UK-led Industrial Revolution transformed the country and fuelled the British Empire. During this time, like other Great Powers, the UK was involved in colonial exploitation, including the slave trade, while the passing of the 1807 Slave Trade Act also made the UK the first nation to prohibit trade in slaves. After the defeat of Napoleon in the Napoleonic Wars, Britain became the principal naval power of the 19th century. At its peak the British Empire controlled large amounts of territory in Asia, Africa, Oceania and America. In the 19th century the country played an important role in the development of parliamentary democracy, partly through the emergence of a multi-party system. At the end of the Victorian era the United Kingdom lost its industrial leadership, particularly to the German Empire, which surpassed the UK in industrial production and trade in the 1890s, and to the United States. (From: United Kingdom - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia , Industrial Revolution - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia  ).

I think that the poem has some relation with today due to the situation that Lord Byron shows us in the poem. It is a very common situation, someone loves someone and he or she feels nostalgia and melancholy because his or her love is not with him or her.

 To conclude, I can say that this poem expresses the basic aim of the Romanticism, the exaltation of the senses and emotions over reason and intellect and Byron focused on the individual self, on the his personal reaction to life in his works. This melancholy that we have in the poem that is a characteristic of him in almost all of his poems.

Bibliography:

* Thomas Gray Archive, Alexander Hurber Editor, University of Oxford. http://www.thomasgray.org/cgibin/comment.cgi?text=lt03&fromline=0&toline=0&type=explanatory&sort=annotation.

* Archive. Lord Byron. http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poet.html?id=81299

* The Life of Lord Byron. Nov. 2007 http://englishhistory.net/byron/life.html.

* The Romantics, George Gordon Lord Byron:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/arts/romantics/byron.shtml.

 *  Columbia Encyclopaedia. Sixth edition 2001-2005:

http://www.bartleby.com/65/by/Byron-Ge.html

http://www.bartleby.com/65/ro/romantic.html

*  Wikipedia The Free Encyclopaedia. George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron. 26 Nov. 2007. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lord_Byron,

*  Wikipedia The Free Encyclopaedia. United Kingdom 28 Nov. 2007. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom#History,

*  Wikipedia The Free Encyclopaedia. Industrial Revolution. 27 Nov. 2007. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial_revolution

*  http://aulavirtual.uv.es/dotlrn/classes/c006/14217/c08c006a14217gA/file-storage/download/04Blake&Byronism.htm?file%5fid=25735045

* Lord Byron and the Armenians.  http://www.iatp.am/byron/17.htm