To Byron
To Byron - meaning Summary
Sorrow Rendered as Beauty
Keats addresses Lord Byron with admiration, praising how Byron makes sorrow beautiful rather than diminished. He describes Byron’s giving grief a luminous halo, like moonlight tinging a cloud, and celebrates the poet’or turning plaintive feeling into an alluring song. The poem is a direct encomium that asks Byron to continue singing his melancholy tales, valuing the pleasure found in "pleasing woe."
Read Complete AnalysesByron! how sweetly sad thy melody! Attuning still the soul to tenderness, As if soft Pity, with unusual stress, Had touch'd her plaintive lute, and thou, being by, Hadst caught the tones, nor suffer'd them to die. O'ershadowing sorrow doth not make thee less Delightful: thou thy griefs dost dress With a bright halo, shining beamily, As when a cloud the golden moon doth veil, Its sides are ting'd with a resplendent glow, Through the dark robe oft amber rays prevail, And like fair veins in sable marble flow; Still warble, dying swan! still tell the tale, The enchanting tale, the tale of pleasing woe.
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