When We Two Parted
When we two parted
In silence and tears,
Half broken-hearted,
To sever for years,
Pale grew thy cheek and cold,
Colder thy kiss;
Truly that hour foretold
Sorrow to this.
The dew of the morning
Sank chill on my brow -
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,
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?
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 -
In silence I grieve
That thy heart could forget,
Thy spirit deceive.
If I should meet thee
After long years,
How should I greet thee? -
With silence and tears.
Nur GEDİK
ReplyDeleteın this poem,we can feel the atmosphere of seperation and the pain of the pairs.We dont know the reason for their seperation. Maybe cold symbolizes death and the reason for their seperation is death.
when poem hears her name he feels shame maybe their relationship was a sin therefore he feels so.Maybe the reason for silence is the same.Since their relationship was not acceptable,he didn't want to declare and didnt want others know their secret love.
The words used in the poem such as shudder,knell; dew,chill; silence and tears convey the striking powerful emotions.And we can also get the psychology of the people in that poem easily.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lWL0B7Sia-8
ReplyDeleteyou can listen the poem in this address
In my opinion, the speaker and his beloved one are seperated because of the death of the beloved one. I get this from "pale grew thy cheek and cold..." because coldness symbolizes death. The words" secret and silence" give clues about their unsuitable relationship. Maybe she was married so they have to hide this relationship from the society. In brief, the poem explains a relationship full of tears and sorrows perfectly.
ReplyDeleteGULNOZA NURULLAEVA
ReplyDeleteIt is a sad, melancholic poem. I think this feeling that the poet describes happens not only when we loose people close to us forever(death), but it also refers to breaking up or divorce.
I also think that only superficially is this poem a 'heartfelt lament' for a lost love. Its real subject is not so much a specific relationship (although it is that, too) but rather Byron's fatalistic acknowledgment that however much we try believe otherwise love can delude and disappoint us. There are numerous allusions to death in the poem, and therefore I would say Byron's point is that the failure of love is as inevitable as the inevitability of death. He regrets the passing of their love because it reminds him of his mortality.
As we mwntioned in class there is a secret stanza of this poem:
ReplyDeleteThen --- fare thee well --- Fanny ---
Now doubly undone ---
To prove false unto many ---
As faithless to One ---
Thou art past all recalling
Even would I recall ---
For the woman once falling
Forever must fall. ---
This stanza is just like a summary and makes everything more clear, I think.
I think Lord Byron is so romantic. while I was preparing a presentation about him I just got bored because of his excessive emotionalism. Ofcourse I cannanot deny the fact that life is reflected in literature. His personal life,his own grief and his own love led him to write this love poems. In person, he is so complicated, I think something in him remained unresolved. he tried to break the habits, rules but at the same time he was jammed between his thoughts and society or how the life treated him.
ReplyDeletein this poem, poet talks about the seperation of him and his darling and their possibility of remeeting.
ReplyDeletetheir love is asecret one. people dont know their relationship.
and they are seperated because of the death of his darling.
he says we met in silence. it indicates that they met each other secretly.
so they were seperated in secret also.
and he feels woe, because of the impossibility of his love to come out and be known by everyone who know her.
he also send his darling in secret and tears.
he can not unburden his grief.
Jiyan Taher :
ReplyDeleteAs we know Byron was Be sexual and also he had incestuous relations with his half-sister. So we can say that the poet speaks about his beloved, who is either a man or his half-sister. They had a secret love which could not be expressed publicly. The poet tells about the times that they both parted together in a secret”When we two parted/In silence and tears, “He also tells the morning when they had to see each other for the last time and his sadness.” It felt like the warning/Of what I feel now. “ Now he loses his secret lover and hops to see he/she again and joining together as two lover.
It's a very tragedic poem..I think the poet is so sorry for leaving his lover and this break-up is because of the death of the lover. She is gone and the poet is cryin' for her. Also their affair is a bit different. The poet cannot say anything about her, feeling the desperate on his heart just by himself. Cause it's a secret love. Nobody know them so this is a SHAME!! But despite of everything, the poet believes that perhaps one day they'd meet, again in silence and tears. But maybe at that time the tears is for happiness because they'll come together...
ReplyDeleteIn this poem poet tells us the seperation from his lover. He is so sad about it. He describes this in a very emotional way.He seperates from his lover with silence and tears. And in the last stanza and in its last part;
ReplyDeleteIf I should meet thee
After long years,
How should I greet thee?
With silence and tears.
We see that when he meet his lover again he is in silence and tears but this time it is because of happiness to see her again. This is very impressing, I think.
“When We Two Parted” is beautiful poem by Lord Byron, that tells the story of a couple that shared a secret relationship and is forced to separate for a period of time, and during this period, the person to whom the poem is directed to commits an act of indiscretion and the speaker is shamed and betrayed. If he should meet his beloved again, he will greet her with “silence and tears.” And when I did reseach on the internet I found this information "The poem is about Frances Webster, whom Byron didn’t seduce because she was a newlywed; but within a year it was reported she was having an affair with someone else, so Byron felt cheated."
ReplyDeleteHow should I greet thee?
With silence and tears.
SEDEF KONUK
ReplyDeleteHow should I greet thee?
with silence and tears.
ın these lines, we see that he has still hope for reunion and thinks how he should behave when they met. maybe he will be still in love with her and he has nothing to do except for crying in silence. Or maybe he wants to hurt her because he is hurt by her. we may think on these two possibilities.
Fatma KAYA
ReplyDeleteWe know that Byron was one of the most representative romantic poets. “When we two parted” is a poem of heart broken, expressing strong feelings in a simple manner but full of meaning.The third stanza actually contains strong vocabulary showing that “she” is dead: “A knell to mine ear; A shudder comes o’er me”.from these two lines we understand that by using the word ‘knell’ he try to liken to the sounds of the funeral bells.
Also I found some information on the net as already some of my friends mentioned.Some researches say that the person who was addressed this poem is Lady Frances Webster (married woman) and a last stanza was left out to keep the identity of the woman a secret. It was discover when Byron wrote a letter to his cousin Lady Hardy giving her of the last stanza:
Then --- fare thee well --- Fanny ---
Now doubly undone ---
To prove false unto many ---
As faithless to One ---
Thou art past all recalling
Even would I recall ---
For the woman once falling
Forever must fall. –
Lord Bryon's, "When we Two parted" is about a woman and a man who were secretly in love and couldn't be together because of their social classes. They separated for some time and she promised to love him forever, when in reality she basically started sleeping around and got a bad reputation. Now, the man is hearing other people talk about her because they never knew that he loved her and he is sharing in her shame. He concludes by asking her how he can ever face her again and his answer is with tears.
ReplyDelete