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 mellow'd to that tender light
Which heaven to gaudy day denies.
One shade the more, one ray the less,
Had half impair'd 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![1]
"She Walks in Beauty" is a short lyrical poem in iambic tetrameter written in 1814 by Lord Byron, and is one of his most famous works.[2]
It is said to have been inspired by an event in Byron's life. On 11 June 1814, Byron attended a party in London. Among the guests was Mrs. Anne Beatrix Wilmot, wife of Byron's first cousin, Sir Robert Wilmot. He was struck by her unusual beauty, and the next morning the poem was written.[3]
It is thought that she was the first inspiration for his unfinished epic poem about Goethe, a personal hero of his. In this unpublished work, which Byron referred to in his letters as his magnum opus, he switches the gender of Goethe and gives him the same description of his cousin.[citation needed]
Musical settings
The poem has inspired various composers over time, including Roger Quilter, Gerald Finzi, Toby Hession, Ivy Frances Klein, Jean Coulthard, Isaac Nathan, Nicolas Flagello, Mychael Danna, and Sally Whitwell. The British musical ensemble Mediaeval Baebes sing the complete poem on their 2015 album The Huntress.
References
- ^ Byron, George Gordon, Lord (1905). The Complete Poetical Works (Cambridge ed.). Boston: Houghton Mifflin. p. 216.
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) - ^ OED."She Walks in Beauty" Retrieved 3 january 2020
- ^ Cummings, Michael J. (2008) "Byron's She Walks in Beauty" at Cummings Study Guides. Retrieved 10 July 2014
External links
- Works related to She walks in beauty at Wikisource
- v
- t
- e
- Barony of Byron
- Byronic hero
- Early life
- Newstead Abbey
- Timeline of Lord Byron
- Anne Isabella, Lady Byron (wife)
- Ada Lovelace (daughter)
- Allegra Byron (daughter)
- John "Mad Jack" Byron (father)
- Claire Clairmont
- Nicolo Giraud
- Contessa Guiccioli
- Jane Harley
- John Cam Hobhouse
- Douglas Kinnaird
- Lady Caroline Lamb
- Augusta Leigh (maternal half-sister)
- Medora Leigh
- Thomas Moore
- Isaac Nathan
- Walter Scott
- John William Polidori
- Percy Bysshe Shelley
- Mary Shelley
- Edward John Trelawny
- Michael C. Burgess
poetry
- Hours of Idleness (1807)
- English Bards and Scotch Reviewers (1809)
- Childe Harold's Pilgrimage (1812–1818)
- The Giaour (1813)
- The Bride of Abydos (1813)
- The Corsair (1814)
- Lara, A Tale (1814)
- The Siege of Corinth (1816)
- Parisina (1816)
- The Prisoner of Chillon (1816)
- The Dream (1816)
- Prometheus (1816)
- "Darkness" (1816)
- The Lament of Tasso (1817)
- Beppo (1818)
- Don Juan (1819–1824; incomplete upon Byron's 1824 death)
- Mazeppa (1819)
- The Prophecy of Dante (1819)
- The Vision of Judgment (1821)
- The Age of Bronze (1823)
- The Island (1823)
- Manfred (1817)
- Marino Faliero (1820)
- Sardanapalus (1821)
- The Two Foscari (1821)
- Cain (1821)
- Heaven and Earth (1821)
- Werner (1822)
- The Deformed Transformed (1822)
poetry
- "Lachin y Gair" (1807)
- "Epitaph to a Dog" (1808)
- "Maid of Athens, ere we part" (1810)
- Hebrew Melodies (1815)
- "She Walks in Beauty"
- "The Destruction of Sennacherib"
- "Fare Thee Well" (1816)
- Irish Avatar (1821)
- "So, we'll go no more a roving" (1830)
- Fragment of a Novel (1819)
- Letters
- Memoirs
- Byron (1908 play)
- The Bride of Frankenstein (1935 film)
- The Bad Lord Byron (1949 film)
- Camino Real (1953 play)
- Lord Byron (1972 opera)
- Lady Caroline Lamb (1972 film)
- Childe Byron (1977 play)
- Bloody Poetry (1984 play)
- Gothic (1986 film)
- Rowing with the Wind (1988 film)
- Haunted Summer (1988 film)
- Arcadia (1993 play)
- Mary Shelley (2017 film)
- "The Haunting of Villa Diodati" (2020 TV episode)
- Category