Poet’s Corner: Byron–She Walks in Beauty

29 July 2026

(25 September 2015) We turn now from the “elder Romantics”–Blake, Wordsworth, Coleridge–to look at the younger Romantics (it is a strange designation, since all the elder Romantics outlived the younger!), beginning with Byron, more precisely, George Gordon, Lord Byron–the name none now remember! One of Byron’s more famous poems, and thus an influence on this poet, “She Walks in Beauty,” written the morning after Byron met his cousin by marriage, Mrs. Robert John Wilmot:

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.

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!

From records of the time, we know that this cousin of Byron, on this occasion, wore a black gown of mourning, decorated with spangles, probably golden, that sparkled and set off her eyes, and her ‘raven tresses.’ Byron makes a study of light and dark in this poem, showing, in his cousin, how each contrasts and complements the other, and how her happiness and goodness are reflected in the interplay of light and dark. All writers are voyeurs, watching people and their interactions, and I can see Byron, off to one side, contemplating the moment, watching his cousin interact with others, struck by the contrast of light and dark shown in this cousin. It is a typical moment that we all experience, seeing something that piques our interest, becoming an excuse for composition. We recall that Wordsworth described this process, the poet putting himself in the moment, letting the emotions flow, and then beginning to write. Next time, we will look at a piece of one of Byron’s longer compositions, and his description of the Romantic hero. Until then, good reading!