“No one should be a rhymer who could be anything better.”~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!
“On the evening of June 11, 1814, Byron attended a party with his friend, James Wedderburn Webster, at the London home of Lady Sarah Caroline Sitwell. Among the other guests was the beautiful Mrs. Anne Beatrix Wilmot, the wife of Byrons first cousin, Sir Robert Wilmot. Her exquisite good looks dazzled Byron and inspired him to write She Walks in Beauty. She was apparently in mourning and wearing black with silver accoutrements (like a starry night).”
Byron is not the right man to be writing of “a heart whose love is innocent” as far as I can tell. He once said, “Every day confirms my opinion on the superiority of a vicious life — and if Virtue is not its own reward I don’t know any other stipend annexed to it.” He rather reminds me of Oscar Wilde, fond of elegance and of shocking people both with his actions and his observations. He is said to have had sex with over 300 women, and probably several minors, both boys and girls, a fact which takes some of the beauty out of the poem for me. I know one is supposed to dissociate the writer from his work and enjoy the poetry for what it is, but I can’t do that with either Byron or Shelley. They were both good-for-nothing cads, and the flavor of their lives gets into their poetry somehow.
Anyway, it might be a lovely poem if no one had ever told me anything about the poet.
You can read more about Byron if you’re so inclined:
The Life and Work of Lord Byron at Englishhistory.net
George Gordon, Lord Byron: Byromania
Byron and Shelley are my least favorite of the Romantic poets. I dislike Shelley in particular–not only does he seem like someone I would have disliked on a personal level, but I was never crazy about most of his poetry.
I have to agree with you about Byron–his poetry is brilliant, but his personal life sometimes taints the experience of his poetry for me. (I say “sometimes” because there are lines that are so good that I don’t care that they were written by a cad!)
Here’s a verse I always loved, from “Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage:
In my youth’s summer I did sing of One,
The wandering outlaw of his own dark mind;
Again I seize the theme, then but begun,
And bear it with me, as the rushing wind
Bears the cloud onwards: in that tale I find
The furrows of long thought, and dried-up tears,
Which, ebbing, leave a sterile track behind,
O’er which all heavily the journeying years
Plod the last sands of life – where not a flower appears.
Still … I’ll take Keats over Byron and Shelley any day!