She Walks In Beauty Essays (946 words) - She Walks In Beauty

She Walks In Beauty Noel Byron's poem titled, "She Walks in Beauty," plainly put, is a love poem about a beautiful woman and all of her features. Throughout the poem, Byron explains the depth of this womans' beauty. Even in the darkness of death and mourning, her beauty shines through. Her innocence shows her pureness in heart, and her pureness in love. The two forces involved in Byron's poem are the darkness and light- at work in the woman's beauty, and also the two areas of her beauty-the internal and the external. The poem appears to be about a lover, but in fact was written about Byron's cousin, Anne Wilmot, whom he met at a party in a mourning dress of spangled. This fact, the black dress that was brightened with spangles, helps the reader to understand the origin of the poem. Byron portrays this, the mixing of the darkness and the light, not by describing the dress or the woman's actions, but by describing her physical beauty as well as her interior strengths. In the beginning of the poem, the reader is given the image of darkness: "She walks in beauty, like the night," but then the line continues explaining that the night is cloudless and the stars are bright. So immediately the poem brings together its two opposing forces that are at work, darkness and light. In lines three and four Byron emphasizes that the unique feature of the woman is her ability to contain opposites within her; "the nest of dark and bright meet in her." The joining together of the darkness and the light can be seen in her "aspect," or appearance, but also in her "eyes." In this case, the woman's eyes aren't to be associated with a physical feature, but more as an internal aspect of her; the eyes reveal her heart. Byron also emphasizes the unique feature of this woman to contain opposites within her, therefore agreeing with the concept that not only is there a struggle between the darkness and the light, but also within the woman. In the second stanza, once again, the opposites are combined. "Shade" or darkness is combined with "day" or light, and "raven tress" or dark hair is linked with a lightened face. If the woman contained with in her and in her appearance either a little bit more of darkness or a little bit more of light, she would be "half impaired." A key word in this section is "grace." Although Byron continuously talks about appearances, in actuality he is referring to the"nameless grace" that is in her hair and face. Once again, it is something internal as well as external that is so attractive about this woman. In the third and final stanza, Byron concludes the poem with three lines a physical description that lead to the final three lines the woman's moral characterization. The soft cheeks, the winning smile, the tints in the skin eloquently express not only physical beauty, but they also attest to her morality. The physical beauty, the speaker can conclude, reflects days spent doing well, a mind at peace, and "a heart whose love is innocent!" The tone, relating to beauty, is that the writer tends to believe that throughout the mourning, a persons beauty can shine through. The Mood Inspires one to love and to see through the shadows of mourning. The Speaker of this poem is of someone looking from the outside in. It is told by a person expressing his observations of what he perceives her to be. He is trying to convince the reader that she is perfect. The theme shown throughout the poem is that mourning does not necessarily imply melancholy or extreme sadness. Byron uses many antonyms to describe this woman but still portrays a perfect balance within her, often using opposites like darkness and light to create this balance. A simile was shown in line one which stated, "She walks in beauty, like the night," which is also the basis of the poem. The poem follows a basic iambic tetrameter with an unaccented syllable followed by an accented syllable that allows for a rhythm to be set by the reader and can be clearly seen when one looks at a line: She walks / in beau / ty like / the night. Each line consists of four meters with two syllables each, a total of eight syllables per line. The rhyme scheme flows as ABABAB CDCDCD EFEFEF The poem also shows that it is lyrical which helps to put an