Lines Written Beneath a Picture

Lines Written Beneath a Picture - meaning Summary

Memory Outlives Love

Byron addresses a painted likeness as a focus for grief after a lost love. The speaker accepts that love and hope are gone but finds the portrait and tears keep despair company. Time’s usual power to soften sorrow is rejected; instead the speaker claims that the death of hope has made memory indelible. The poem therefore insists that loss can immortalize recollection rather than heal it.