TOP70-DES67
This Old Poem #70:
Lord Byron’s Stanzas For Music
Copyright © by Dan Schneider, 11/1/03
Lord George Gordon Byron (1788-1824) is doubtlessly 1 of the most overrated poets of all-time. He’s been called a humorist- yet (like William Shakespeare) his poems are not funny. He’s been called a satirist- yet little wit abounds. He’s been said to have written epic poems, but that’s fallacious as well. Basically, Byron was a lesser version of the enfant terrible popularized later in the 19th century by French poet Arthur Rimbaud. In truth, he was to Percy Bysshe Shelley & John Keats what Adrienne Rich was to Sylvia Plath & Anne Sexton- a mediocrity (at best) that rode along the coattails of better poets. Here’s his tale- culled from several online sites:
LB’s
romantic versifying made him an icon in Victorian England. He pursued romantic
adventures, even though his brief life was a sort of unwitting farce. LB came
from a long line of philanderers & idiots. His father was 1. His mother was
vain & self-indulgent. George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron, was born in London at
16 Holles Street, Cavendish Square, on the January 22nd 1788. LB’s
right leg & foot suffered from infantile paralysis. The death of a
great-uncle in1798 gave him his title & money. But LB seems to have suffered
some form of emotional abuse from his mother by being forced to wear dresses in
childhood. For years this was thought to have ‘caused’ his later
homosexuality.
LB was highly educated- with prep schools & colleges littering his
life. He fell in love, at 16, to a distant cousin- Mary Anne Chaworth. Nothing
came of it. He raised hell in his stay at Cambridge. By 1807 his 1st
book of juvenile poetry was published. In 1809 LB took his place in the House of
Lords. He then spent months jaunting about Europe. By January 2nd,
1815 he married Isabella Milbanke, & they lived together for about a year.
They had a daughter named Ada. Isabella left him on January 15th,
1816. After the divorce Byron left England & never returned. He headed for
Greece & financed 1 of the warring Greek groups during a revolution. For the
next 8 years his health dogged him, even as he unwavered in his support for his
Greek loyalists. He died at 6 p.m. on April 10th, 1824. The Greeks
mourned him. He was buried beneath the church of Huchnall-Torkard on July 16th,
1824. He was refused burial in Westminster Abbey. There is not a bust of him in
Poets' Corner.
His most famous poem is the ‘supposed epic’, Don Juan. It is
seen as an attack on Romantic idealism, a manifesto of love, a satire, a
Biblical analogue, an early example of Confessionalism, & a nihilistic smash
at the world. While LB attacks pretension he also endorses it in the overlong
& dull poem. Yet he also attacked William Wordsworth as abstruse, Samuel
Taylor Coleridge as misguided, & Robert Southey as a hack- amongst others.
But the poem is a long bore.
Yet, LB wrote some good- if not great- poems. Here’s his most famous, 1
everyone knows:
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.
Yes, the poem is larded with clichés. But, it has a good music- it’s structurally sound, & does have a Classical appeal. Not so with the titular clichéfest:
There be none
of Beauty's daughters
With a magic like thee;
And like music
on the waters
Is thy sweet voice to me:
When, as if its
sound were causing
The charmed
ocean's pausing,
The waves lie
still and gleaming,
And the lull'd
winds seem dreaming:
And the
midnight moon is weaving
Her bright chain o'er the deep;
Whose breast is
gently heaving,
As an infant's asleep:
So the spirit
bows before thee,
To listen and
adore thee;
With a full but
soft emotion,
Like the swell
of Summer's ocean.
Where to start? About the only good thing the poem has going for it is concision- only 2 stanzas & 16 lines. Let us forget about the trite love poem themes & descriptions; let’s hit the actual ‘music’ of the poem. It’s good, solid- but nothing to write home over. So- then- what is the virtue of the poem? None. The 1st 4 lines attempt connection with a lost mythic past. Lines 5 & 6 are standard ascription of divine qualities to a particular quality of the Beloved. Lines 7 & 8 are merely overwritten extensions of an already trite theme. Stanza 2’s 1st ½ is more clichés, & the last 4 lines are more banal love clichés. Yet, this is 1 of LB’s most famous poems. Let’s see what a little tweaking of a few key words can do to subvert & improve the poem:
Stanzas
For Music
There be none
of Beauty's daughters
With a magic to see;
Like the music
on the waters
Is thy fleet voice to me:
When, as if its
sound were causing
The charmed
ocean's pausing,
The waves lie
still with dreaming,
As the lull'd
winds seem scheming:
And the
midnight moon is weaving
Her bright chain o'er the sleep;
Whose breast is
gently heaving,
As an infant's slow creep:
So the spirit
bows before thee,
To listen and
implore thee;
With a full but
swift emotion,
Like the swell of Summer's notion.
Let’s compare the word changes- line-by-line. In line 2 ‘like thee’ becomes ‘to see’. The cliché is subdued, if not eliminated. In line 4 ‘sweet’ becomes ‘fleet’- the cliché becomes an interesting choice of description- why is the voice fleet? Is that why it’s magic? The stanza end changes from:
The waves lie
still and gleaming,
And the lull'd
winds seem dreaming:
to:
The waves lie
still with dreaming,
As the lull'd
winds seem scheming:
Still with dreaming is an apparent oxymoron, yet it’s literally not.
The last line improves because they are now scheming while
dreaming, rather than gleaming and dreaming. While the 1st stanza is
not a magnificent new foray into virgin territory it is still improved over the
original.
In stanza 2 the ‘deep’ becomes the ‘sleep’. Instead of moon &
ocean imagery we get the slightly more interesting sleep connection. But the
real interesting turn in the poem comes from the switch of ‘asleep’ to slow
creep’. That change adds dread to the poem- be it the dread of love or of
sleep is no matter because it ups the ante in a way the original does not.
‘Adore’ becomes the more urgent ‘implore’- stress still rising….Then
the ‘soft’ emotion becomes ‘swift’- still more heart-quickening. The
change of ‘ocean’ to ‘notion’ returns the poem to an act of dream or
ideation, rather than a banality- which was the original.
Is the poem great? No. But it is worth reading again, now. That was not
true with the original. Nor was it true with its original poet. C’est la
vie (or would that be mort?).
Final Score: (1-100):
Lord Byron’s Stanzas For Music: 50
TOP’s
Stanzas For Music: 70