Stanzas for Music: They Say That Hope Is Happiness
Stanzas for Music: They Say That Hope Is Happiness - meaning Summary
Hope, Memory, and Loss
Byron contrasts hope, love, and memory to argue that hope and memory are interdependent yet ultimately deceptive. The poem suggests genuine love values the past, converting former hopes into cherished memories, but it ends in disillusion: the future deceives and neither the remembered self nor the anticipated self can be fully realized. The closing lines convey a skeptical view of aspiration and identity, framing hope as an unreliable source of happiness.
Read Complete AnalysesThey say that Hope is happiness; But genuine Love must prize the past, And Memory wakes the thoughts that bless: They rose the first–they set the last; And all that Memory loves the most Was once our only Hope to be, And all that Hope adored and lost Hath melted into Memory. Alas it is delusion all: The future cheats us from afar, Nor can we be what we recall, Nor dare we think on what we are.
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