She Walks in Beauty, Like the Night
Apart from his rather exotic taste in headwear (see icon, left), Byron had rather interesting tastes in other things as well. You can read a bit of his history in a prior post. Still, he wrote some gloriously beautiful poetry, and the poem I'm posting today is one of them. It falls into the best-known/best-loved category for a lot of people:
She Walks in Beauty
by George Gordon, Lord Byron
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!
The form and metre here are quite simple, yet extremely difficult to pull off well without it sounding forced or awkward. It's written in iambic tetrameter (four iambic feet per line), in cross-rhymed stanzas of six lines each. (ABABAB CDCDCD EFEFEF)
She Walks in Beauty
by George Gordon, Lord Byron
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!
The form and metre here are quite simple, yet extremely difficult to pull off well without it sounding forced or awkward. It's written in iambic tetrameter (four iambic feet per line), in cross-rhymed stanzas of six lines each. (ABABAB CDCDCD EFEFEF)