“She Walks in Beauty”, George Gordon Byron

Details

Description

Lord Byron’s lyrical poem “She Walks in Beauty” was composed in 1814 and published the next year in his “Hebrew Melodies”. Byron presumedly wrote it the morning after meeting Anne Beatrix Wilmot at a party and being struck by her beauty.

George Gordon Byron was born on 22 January 1788 in London, England, and he died on 19 April 1824 in Missolonghi, Aetolia, Ottoman Empire (now Greece), at the age of 36.

Lord Byron was one of the leading figures of the Romantic movement and is regarded as one of the greatest English poets. Among his best-known works are the lengthy narrative poems “Don Juan” and “Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage”.

Wikipedia page on the poem: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/She_Walks_in_Beauty
Wikipedia page on Lord Byron: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lord_Byron
Watch on the Voice & Lit website: https://www.voiceandlit.com/byron/she-walks-in-beauty/

0:00 Stanza 1
0:25 Stanza 2
0:46 Stanza 3
1:14 Authorship

Text of the poem:

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!