When We Two Parted - By George Gordon Byron

When We Two Parted

-      By George Gordon Byron

        George Gordon Byron was simply known as ‘Lord Byron’. He was an Anglo-Scottish poet, politician, and a leading figure in the Romantic Movement. He has also written ‘She Walks in Beauty’. I have studied this poem in my graduation.

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

Sunk 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.

        In this poem, from the very first stanza we come to know that the poet is talking about partition. The poet expresses his feeling of being separate from someone and how he recalls the past. When poet has parted from his lover or we can also say friend, they have parted in silence and tears. There were not any harsh arguments or not any fight but they have parted very calmly and with understanding. In relation this thing is very important. People break up with harsh arguments and fight rather than understanding of love. Poet notices the effect of separation on both sides.

       

       In next stanza poet expresses the broken relationship’s effect in public life. Every moment he remembers the love and care of broken relation and when someone speaks the name of the lady or friend he used to feel the shame because they were unknown now. When any person recalls the name of lady, for poet it was like knelling to his ear. He was very broken because of separation and the name of lady reminds him all the good as well as bad memory he had with her.

     

      When a person ends up any relation, at that time normally s/he recalls the past memories and one question always come to the mind, and that is

“Why wert thou so dear?”

      We don’t understand what changes people’s mind, but once they change than we can never get them back. The same was also happened with the poet. People used to take lady’s name unknowingly, because they were not aware about the past relationship of poet with her. The relation was very secret.

   

     In last stanza poet asks that what if we meet after long years, how the poet would great the lady, and again the answer was,

“Silence and Tears”

     If we love a person and we have separated our self with the person, we separate with understanding. After long time the same person meets us, we cannot communicate easily as before. The best way to communicate is with feelings and poet also talks about it. Because when they will meet the will not able to speak to each other but they will cry definitely. Those feelings will be more valuable than words.

The Slave's Dream - by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

The Slave's Dream

by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

   

        The poem “The Slave's Dream” is written by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.  he became a professor at Baudoin and later at Harvard College. Longfellow wrote many lyric poems which was known for their musicality and stories of mythology and legend. I have studied this poem in my graduation. 

      At that time the understanding of poem was just a part of my emotions, but now I can apply some theories and terms like colonialism and Nativism with some elements of excile. 

The Slave's Dream

Beside the ungathered rice he lay,
  His sickle in his hand;
His breast was bare, his matted hair
  Was buried in the sand.
Again, in the mist and shadow of sleep,
  He saw his Native Land.
Wide through the landscape of his dreams
  The lordly Niger flowed;
Beneath the palm-trees on the plain
  Once more a king he strode;
And heard the tinkling caravans
  Descend the mountain-road.
He saw once more his dark-eyed queen
  Among her children stand;
They clasped his neck, they kissed his cheeks,
  They held him by the hand!--
A tear burst from the sleeper's lids
  And fell into the sand.
And then at furious speed he rode
  Along the Niger's bank;
His bridle-reins were golden chains,
  And, with a martial clank,
At each leap he could feel his scabbard of steel
  Smiting his stallion's flank.
Before him, like a blood-red flag,
  The bright flamingoes flew;
From morn till night he followed their flight,
  O'er plains where the tamarind grew,
Till he saw the roofs of Caffre huts,
  And the ocean rose to view.
At night he heard the lion roar,
  And the hyena scream,
And the river-horse, as he crushed the reeds
  Beside some hidden stream;
And it passed, like a glorious roll of drums,
  Through the triumph of his dream.
The forests, with their myriad tongues,
  Shouted of liberty;
And the Blast of the Desert cried aloud,
  With a voice so wild and free,
That he started in his sleep and smiled
  At their tempestuous glee.
He did not feel the driver's whip,
  Nor the burning heat of day;
For Death had illumined the Land of Sleep,
  And his lifeless body lay
A worn-out fetter, that the soul
  Had broken and thrown away!

Here is the beautiful video of poem with lyrics

      

         

        In the poem “The Slaves Dream” he has represented the condition of slave. Poem has a Nigerian slave as a protagonist. He saw a dream on lying on sand, that he finally went to his motherland and met his children and wife. He realized freedom in his dream but still there was a golden chain which was not allowing him to fly. In his dream he was flying and during his ride he saw the Nigerian river flowing, palm-trees and mountains which suggest peace and freedom. He also saw the forest where they have shouted for liberty but now he was a slave.

     

       The slave has saw his family, motherland and smiled in his dream, but when he remembered the condition of his family without him and now he was a slave, he started crying in his dream. He was beaten by his master and all those painful memories have overpowered him. The slave was in dream and his master came. He saw that the slave is sleeping and he started beating him. The slave was not able to feel the whip because he has left the world of reality. He was dead. His body was lifeless and his soul was broken.

   

     H. W. Longfellow has presented the desires of freedom by a slave and harsh reality of his life in reality that he is not able to free himself from slavery in dream also. The condition of sold slave and his life was like animal, even an animal can rebel and harm the master but slaves were not able to do that. At the end death has freed the soul from the body of slavery, but the soul was broken.

 

The Victorian age 1850 -1900

The Victorian age 1850 -1900

      The age was started with the arrival of Queen Victoria on the throne in 1837. The influence of the era has started from 1830 and stayed till 1900. These were the years of development. The romance of the Romantic age has vanished and now the period was known as,

“The modern period of progress and unrest”

   

  In this period there was huge progress in science and arts but with social unrest. Wordsworth was upset with the deaths of romantic poets because he was the only survivor of the romantic poets. In deep pain, he has written,

“How fast has brother followed brother,

From sunshine to the sunless land!”

   It was a time of material development with ideal peace and moral instincts. The sorrow of Wordsworth also depends upon the ‘Prosaic’ element of the age.

          The age was concerned as the age of “democracy”. The long battle of Anglo-Saxon was now settled and people were feeling freedom. Common people have chosen their representatives by their will and it can be said that,

 “The house of common people become the ruling power in England”

       

     The freedom of writing, painting, and living life has been given to all, and spread of education was the most important democratic movement ever.

     

        Secondly, it was also an age of social unrest. For a long time, education was not allowed for everyone. In this era, education was for all. New education came into existence and people were living with new ideas. There were some moments that were the reason for social unrest.

     1.  Oxford Movement:

      This was the movement around the 19^th century, and led by John Henry Newman. It was generated by those who were against scientific development and wanted the church to rule over people by resettling the glory of religion. The movement was mostly on pamphlets and tracts so it was also known as “The Tractarian Movement”. The center of the movement was Oxford, so it is known as ‘The Oxford Movement.

    2.  The Pre- Raphaelite School of Poetry:

      This movement was for establishing the quality of poetry through ‘Pictorial effects’. Raphael was a painter and all the leaders of the moment like Dante Gabriel Rossetti, John Everett Millais, and William Holman Hunt founded a society in 1848, getting inspired by Raphael.

   

       The age had many revolts but overall it is known as the age of ‘The Ideal of Peace'. Education was spreading everywhere at that time, and it was a time to stop wars with the help of knowledge. As England come to know that the slaves were not Africans but the people working in the workhouses, they realized that material development is creating social unrest among the people. It will create a burden upon the middle-class people. As the war has stopped, and the major focus of people on arts and science with earning money, it can be considered as the age of peace.

   

      The most important development has been done in the field of arts and science. Darwin has given the origin of species in 1859, Geology has been developed in 1811, and galaxies were established in 1841. Electricity and steamboats were also established during this time. In various pieces of literature, writers have depicted the development of science. In “Oliver Twist” Charles Dickens has depicted the effect of industrialization. In “”Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” Robert Stevenson has depicted the effect of scientific development. In “Frankenstein” Mary Shelly has presented the power of electricity. Overall it can be said that the era was ‘Progressive’.

 

     After the death of all Romantic poets, there were only two poets in the Victorian Age, Alfred Tennyson, and Robert Browning. Both were prominent poets who represented poetry and kept it alive but the age was mostly known as the age of prose. It is said that,

“Novels were famous in the Victorian age as Drama was in Elizabethan age”

   

   Novels were popular and novelists presented the reality of society in their novels. Dickens has presented sentiments with harsh truth, Ruskin has presented individual viewpoints and conditions of people, Arnold has presented the culture and criticism and George Eliot has presented the psychology of human life. These were the reasons that the novel was so close to the hearts of people.

   

   This was also an age of morality and truth. The imagination of the Romantic age has vanished and the harsh reality of society and human life has been presented by the new writers. Poets have mainly presented the good part of life in their poems, but these writers were not only writers but also critics. Robert Browning has written,

“God’s in His heaven—

All’s right with the world! “

   

  It was the age of harsh realism rather than fiction stories of fantasy.

   

     The important part of the age was optimism and idealism. Writers were more focused on the life of an individual and its connection with society rather than mere imagination. Every age has some faults in it, this age can be considered as the last period of English history which has magic and scientific spirits together. As Browning said,

“Held we fall to rise, are baffled to fight better,

Sleep to wake”

Novelists	Poets	Essayists
Charles Dickens	Alfred Tennyson	Thomas B. Macaulay
W.M. Thackeray	Robert Browning	Thomas Carlyle
George Eliot	Elizabeth Barrett	John Ruskin
Charles Reade	D. G. Rossetti	Matthew Arnold
Charlotte Bronte	William Morris	John Henry Newman
Thomas Hardy

 

References - William J. Long, English Literature.