CARMEN PASCUAL SASTRE

PAPER II

TO A LADY…

WHO PRESENTED THE AUTHOR A LOCK OF HAIR, BRAIDED WITH HIS OWN,
AND APPOINTED A NIGHT IN DECEMBER TO MEET HIM IN THE GARDEN.

By
Lord Byron

THESE locks which fondly thus entwine,

In firmer chains our hearts confine;

Than all th' unmeaning protestations,

Which swell with nonsense, love orations.

Our love is fix'd, I think we've prov'd it,

Nor time, nor place, nor art, have mov'd it;

Then wherefore should we sigh, and whine,

With groundless jealousy repine.

With silly whims, and fancies frantic,

Merely to make our love romantic.

Why should you weep like Lydia Languish,

And fret with self-created anguish.

Or doom the lover you have chosen,

On winter nights, to sigh half frozen:

In leafless shades, to sue for pardon,

Only because the scene's a garden.

For gardens seem by one consent

( Since Shakespeare set the precedent; )

( Since Juliet first declar'd her passion )

To form the place of assignation.

Oh!  would some modern muse inspire,

And seat her by a sea-coal fire,

Or had the bard at Christmas written,

And laid the scene of love in Britain;

He surely in commiseration,

Had chang'd the place of declaration.

In Italy I've no objection,

Warm nights are proper for reflection;

But here, our climate is so rigid,

That love itself, is rather frigid;

Think on our chilly situation,

And curb this rage for imitation.

Then let us meet, as oft we've done,

Beneath the influence of the sun;

Or, if at midnight I must meet you,

Oh !  let me in your chamber greet you :

There we can love for hours together,

Much better in such snowy weather,

Than plac'd in all th' Arcadian groves,

That ever witness'd rural loves;

There if my passion fail to please,

Next night I'll be content to freeze;

No more I'll give a loose to laughter,

But curse my fate, forever after.

http://www.poetryconnection.net/poets/Lord_Byron/16266

‘To a Lady…’ is a poem about lovers, actually, as it is written before, it is an invitation for a mistress to meet her lover.

The full poem consists of two parts: a short paragraph in which the poet explains who the addressee is and then he signs, and the poem itself. The title then is the beginning of the first part of the poem. However it is very likely that the poem did not have any title when the author wrote it and because of this, the first words were taken as the title.

Byron began his discourse by claiming that the locks, which his lover had previously given to him, joined them even more than romantic words, terms of endearment or all the things that couples who are in love use to do. He is saying that these hairs are very important and symbolical to him. Moreover, they have a metaphorical sense, since the locks are simply some hairs that are tighten and they are two lovers which are also somehow united and tighten by the feeling of love.

He continues saying that their love is very firm and that they do not need to be worried nor act as lovers who are always complaining. Then, he moves the topic to the garden, he defends the garden as a good place for lovers to meet each other. And he tries to convince his lover that it has always been a pleasant place to meet. He also says that on winter he would like to meet her in her house because of the weather, and he promises that he will be a good lover.

Without any further analysis this extraordinary poem wakes up my sense of humour and makes me smile. It is amazing the way Byron tries to convince her lover that they are not doing anything bad, and they should meet in a closed space because the winter in Britain is very cold. He is telling her all the time that they are truly in love and he is not going to disappoint her, but to my mind it is as if he was flirting with her only to make love.

Another positive aspect of this poem is the easiness of understanding. Byron uses common place vocabulary, rather quotidian and every day topics and no ambiguous terms, apart from when he wants to create a metaphorical meaning. Furthermore, the poet uses to show flashes of irony and humour. Then, this mix ends up in a piece of work that seems very familiar and easy to understand to the reader.

Structurally, at first sight the poem does not seem to have any stanza, there is no separation between the paragraphs. Related to the metre, it is written in an iambic tetrameter form. And in some cases the author has used tensions in order to follow the established metrical form, as for example the forms th’, fix’d or prov’d, which are used during the first lines. The rhyme is highly static, Byron uses the form: a-a, b-b, c-c,

d-d… along the whole poem.

Moreover, the poem is filled up with cultural references. At the eleventh line, the author compares his lover to Lydia Languish, possibly a famous woman of the time. But during the lines eighteenth and nineteenth, he mentions Shakespeare. And he uses this big name to explain that such a famous poet gave birth to the garden as the scenario for lovers in Romeo and Juliet, the poet emphasizing then the importance of this place as the nest for lovers. He mentions also Rome and the muses, referring to the Classical World.

As literal or technical devices, he uses a wade range of metaphors, as let me in your chamber greet you in the line 36, which can be understood as just saying hello to you, or, what is the more likely, to make love with you. Another similar case of double meaning occurs in the following line, when the author says we can love for hours together with the implied meaning of making love for hours. All these metaphors, all related to the taboo topic of sex, gave the poem a sense of irony, a sense of mocking, and at the same time they help the author to introduce himself as a joyous person with a picaresque sense of humour.

Another line in which a metaphor is used is in line 34, when only to refer to the garden the author writes beneath the influence of the sun, giving now a happy connotation to the garden, looking at it as a sunny and colourful place.

There is also a personification of the word grove when he says: groves, that witness’d rural loves. With this one he is trying again to defend the garden as a lovers’ place, a kind of paradise for lovers.

Personally I have to say that this author has impressed me a lot, but it has impressed me in an amazing and positive way. Throughout To a Lady… the author has given to me the sense of carpe diem, the sense of enjoying the life and the pleasures of it with no embarrassment or worry. Moreover, when I read the poem I had to smile, because it is funny in a sense that the author, the lover in this case, does what he wants and plays with the language managing to convince her lover with simple arguments. And when I finished reading it I feel in a happier mood because it shows me the reality of the present moment in the way of thinking of two centuries ago. And I feel also happy because of the accessibility of it, I can read it and understand it with no problems, and maybe for this reason I have read it countless times and each time I read it I enjoyed it a bit more than the previous one.