George Gordon, Lord Byron

Lord Byron’s “She walks in beauty” is a great piece of work that sets us as the reader in a third person perspective gazing in on the world of this perfect woman. The poem has a repetitive theme of darkness and light contained within the woman.

"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:" (ln 1-4)

Here we are given the image of a dark night which would be a very overpowering black, but it is balanced out by the stars within it. Just as he has taken the natural balance of dark and light, Byron compares the woman to one of the most beautiful things in all of nature, a clear star lit sky.

Perfection is a very delicate thing, and in line seven when Byron tells us “One shade more, one ray less” we know that the woman he speaks of is in his eyes the embodiment of that fine balance.

Once again in lines nine and ten, the complimenting characteristics of dark and light come into play.

"Which waves in every raven tress
Or softly lightens o’er her face;"

Here we get the image of the flowing raven black hair slowly melting into the light captured on her face. The attention in the third stanza moves onto the individual aspects of the face.

"And on that cheek, and o’ver that brow,
So soft, so calm, yet eloquent," (ln 13-14)

Here the dark and light are not even mentioned, it is the mental image that the reader gets from the words cheek and brow that complete the circle. When you think of cheek, you think of a very light word, you say it fast and high pitched, and everyone knows that cheeks are known for being rosy and full of light. You then move onto brow, a very low, deep sounding word that commands presence. When you get the mental image of a brow you see a shade for the eyes.

In the last two lines of the poem he finally talks of her inner beauty.

"A mind at peace with all below
A heart whose love is innocent!" (ln 17-18)

He views her from the outside in and finally when he reaches her heart he realizes the greatest thing of all, an innocent heart. This innocence is what draws him to her in the first place, when you are a dark person, you drawn to the light, you want to bring down the light, bring it into the darkness and corrupt it, and I think that is where the infatuation with this woman makes its roots.