170{24 She Walks in Beauty, BY LORD BYRON (GEORGE GORDON)

Class poem of the week - 1st Grade - High School

She Walks in Beauty, BY LORD BYRON (GEORGE GORDON)

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.

continues: 

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continuation:

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!

George Gordon, Lord Byron. "She Walks in Beauty" from Hebrew Melodies. London: John Murray, 1832-33. Public Domain.

Source: Hebrew Melodies (John Murray, 1832-33)

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43844/she-walks-in-beauty

https://youtu.be/aHxY5wygrD8?si=2qY-lJKPinR-Gqot

" Alliteration occurs frequently to enhance the appeal of the poem to the ear. The most obvious examples of this figure of speech include the following:

Line 2: cloudless climes; starry skies

Line 6: day denies

Line 8: Had half

Line 9: Which waves

Line 11: serenely sweet

Line 14: So soft, so

Line 18: Heart Whose

Examples of other figures of speech are the following:

Lines 1, 2: Simile comparing the movement of the beautiful woman to the movement of the skies; Metaphor: “like the night,”

Lines 2-6-11: “cloudless climes,”(2) “starry skies,”(2) which sounds like the woman’s skirt dragging on the ground, and the sound of ‘d’ in “day denies,”(6) with the feeling of denial and rejection. Also “serenely sweet”(11) ‘s’ sounds that amplifies the image of softness

Line 5: Synesthesia: “tender light,” a mixture of visual and tactile that amplifies softness.

Lines 6-15: Metonymy: “smiles”(15) to represent “the woman,” and “heaven”(6) to represent “god.”

Lines 8-10: Metaphor: “nameless grace / which waves in every raven trees,”(8-9) the poet compares “grace”(8), the quality of the woman, to an observable phenomenon “raven trees”(9)

Lines 11-12: Metaphor and personification comparing thoughts to people; metaphor and personification comparing the mind to a home (dwelling-place)

Lines 13-16: Metaphor and personification comparing the woman’s cheek and brow to persons who tell of days in goodness spent.

Lines 15-18: Personification “smiles that win”(15), “heart whose love is innocent,”(18) Metonymy: We could associate the sound of “starry skies,”(2) represented by the sound ‘s,’ with the, and adapted by David Lasky (

 https://interculturalobservatory.wordpress.com/2014/02/04/she-walks-in-beauty-byron/#:~:text=Alliteration%20occurs%20frequently,To%20find%20out