Poetry for Students, Volume 29

Webster, during this time; she is the subject of
‘‘When We Two Parted.’’ It has been speculated
that he wrote the verse in 1813, although it is more
widely held that Byron wrote the piece the year it
was published, in 1816 (Poems, 1816). Through-
out the ensuing months, Byron corresponded
with Anne Isabella Milbanke, who had previ-
ously rejected an earlier marriage proposal by
Byron. In 1814, he proposed again and she
accepted. The marriage produced a daughter,
Augusta Ada, but ended in 1816 due to Anne
Isabella’s accusations of Byron’s violent out-
bursts and her suspicions of an incestuous rela-
tionship between Byron and his half-sister
Augusta. These details were the subject of much
gossip and public speculation. Byron left England
in 1816, never to return.

Arriving in Geneva, Byron met up with fel-
low poet Percy Bysshe Shelley and his wife Mary
Godwin Shelley. The year was a productive one
for Byron; he penned the third canto ofChilde
Harold’s Pilgrimage, ‘‘The Prisoner of Chillon,’’
and shorter verses, all of which were published
later that year, as was ‘‘When We Two Parted.’’
The following year Byron settled in Italy where
he continued to writeChilde Harold’s Pilgrim-
age. Here he also wrote the satirical narrative
verse Don Juan. Byron increasingly became
involved in Venetian politics and also with the
Greek struggle for independence from Turkey.
He joined the fight in Greece in 1823. The fol-
lowing year, Byron succumbed to a fever and
died in Mesolonghi, Greece, on April 19, 1824.

Poem Summary

When we two parted

In silence and tears,

Half broken-hearted

To sever for years,

Pale grew thy cheek and cold, 5

Colder thy kiss;

Truly that hour foretold

Sorrow to this.

The dew of the morning

Sunk chill on my brow— 10

It felt like the warning

Of what I feel now.

Thy vows are all broken,

And light is thy fame;

I hear thy name spoken, 15

And share in its shame.

They name thee before me,

A knell to mine ear;

A shudder comes o’er me—

Why wert thou so dear? 20

They know not I knew thee,

Who knew thee too well:—

Long, long shall I rue thee,

Too deeply to tell.

In secret we met— 25

In silence I grieve

That thy heart could forget,

Thy spirit deceive.

If I should meet thee

After long years, 30

How should I greet thee?—

With silence and tears.

POEM SUMMARY

Stanza 1

A brief lyric consisting of four short stanzas,

‘‘When We Two Parted’’ is a poem about grief

and regret in which the first-person speaker

mourns not only the loss of a romantic relation-

ship, but also a loss of innocence. From the

present tense, the poem looks back in time, to

when the affair was ended. It also predicts the

results of a possible future meeting of the two

former lovers. In the first stanza, the speaker

describes the pain of the ending of the romance.

The tone in this stanza and throughout the poem

is dark and bleak, with words and images that

evoke feelings of depression and emptiness: the

woman’s pale cheek and cold kiss presage the

depression now felt by the speaker.

Stanza 2

In the second stanza, the cold imagery is rein-

forced with the chilly dew foretelling of the

MEDIA

ADAPTATIONS

 The Poetry of Lord Byronis an unabridged

audiobook, read by Linus Roache, and was

published by HarperCollins AudioBooks in

1997.

When We Two Parted