Lord Byron

WHEN WE TWO PARTED

When we two parted
In silence and tears,
Half broken-hearted,
To sever for years,
Pale grew thy cheek and cold,
Colder thy kiss;
Truly that hour foretold
Sorrow to this.

The dew of the morning
Sank chill on my brow -
It felt like the warning
Of what I feel now.
Thy vows are all broken,
And light is thy fame:
I hear thy name spoken,
And share in its shame.

They name thee before me,
A knell to mine ear;
A shudder comes o'er me -
Why wert thou so dear?
They know not I knew thee,
Who knew thee too well: -
Long, long shall I rue thee
Too deeply to tell.

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.

SHE WALKS IN BEAUTY

She walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that's best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes:
Thus mellowed to that tender light
Which heaven to gaudy day denies.

One shade the more, one ray the less,
Had half impaired the nameless grace
Which waves in every raven tress,
Or softly lightens o'er her face;
Where thoughts serenely sweet express
How pure, how dear their dwelling-place.

And on that cheek, and o'er that brow,
So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,
The smiles that win, the tints that glow,
But tell of days in goodness spent,
A mind at peace with all below,
A heart whose love is innocent!

www.online-literature.com/byron

My work is about Lord Byron’s poems “When we two parted” and “She walks in beauty” . The poet talks here about different types of love, a wonderful one and a disappointed other.

The first poem, “When we two parted”, is written in four stanzas with rhyme a-b-a-b-c-d-c-d and it has in each stanza two verses more than the other poem. The other poem, “She walks in beauty”, is divided in three stanzas and has the rhyme a-b-a-b-a-b.

In the poem “When we two parted”, Lord Byron tell us about a goodbye of a past love. It was a very sad farewell (the poet says: “half broken heart”), and it was for along time (“to sever for years”). But the painful farewell was only the beginning of his pain, it was the warning of what the man feels today (“it felt like the warning of what I feel now”). He really loves her when they said goodbye, but now, he feels embarrased about her, (“I hear thy name spoken, and share in its shame”), he is ashamed about the name of the girl and his name because with her infidelity, she shamed his name.

She goes from bed to bed, from man to man. We can say that because the author says that people know her too well, and the shame impedes that he could admit his love. She was unfaithful to him. But he loves the girl and meets with her in secret, (“in secret we met”) because he wants that nobody knows that he is with her. But, even when he meets her, he grieves: this love can’t be pure because she goes with many men. The poet describes in the poem a bad love with a bad girl.

In the second poem, “She walks in beauty”, Lord Byron describes the innocent heart of the girl and her wonderful beauty. In the first stanza, he compares the girl as a magical night sky, whithout clouds and with a lot of stars in it. She is the best of the world, the best of dark, the best of bright. She has a light in her eyes.

In the second stanza, the poet says that she is perfect: no more shade, no more ray. He can’t describe the grace, the beauty of the girl (“nameless grace”), the grace in her hair, in her innocent as and sweet face. The author describes her house like a pure and loving place. It can be a metaphor of heaven, when meaning maybe is that she is like an angel, like perfection, because in the third stanza the poet talks about her life in goodness, her mind at peace.

In the last verse, Lord Byron says: “ A heart whose love is innocent!”. A lot of people say that the more innocent love is children’s or adolencent’s one. That can mean that the poet is talking about his daughter, or he is remembering an adolescent love.

The poet tell us about a beautiful love which has a big contrast with the previous poem. This is, in my opinion, the biggest difference between the poems, the subject of the poems are the same, love, but from very different perspectives, because in the poem “she walks in beauty”, the author talks about a beautiful love, and has a really good opinion about the girl, and in the other poem “When we two parted”, the opinion about her is very different.

In the poem “She walks in beauty”, there is a verse that says: “which waves in every raven trees”. The raven is generally considered a bad animal, a bird which eats dead animals, and a treacherous animal. It can have a bad meaning: the woman have been always considered the bad part of humanity. Maybe in the poem, even the poet talks about her love, a beautyful girl, he can’t forget that the women are badly considered, and introduces this idea in this way. If it’s right, the poems have a common element in one poem more clearly than the other: a bad apreciation of woman.

Another possibility is that, the verse is a simple metaphor about the colour of the girl’s hair: dark and brilliant like a raven’s plumage, talking again about the beauty of the women and saying anything bad about her.

In both poems, the reader can identify himself with the poem, because all people, in my opinion, have suffered a love disappointment or have been falling in love, and they can have the feeling that the poet describes. The poems are understable and everybody can understand the feelings because probably they have lived them.

Other differences between the poems are the way that they are written. As well as the number of stanzas in each poem and the number of verses, in the poem “She walks beauty”, the adjectives are good, describes the girl with good and beautiful adjectives. But, in the other poem, the adjectives are very sad, and we can notice disappointment in his words.

The poems are atemporal, because in all times, in all periods, love has existed, and love will exist.

If we have love, we will have poems.

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Academic year 2005-06 (may 2006)

amoncan@alumni.uv.es