She Walks in Beauty

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!

George Gordon, Lord Byron, was an English poet who wrote during the early nineteenth century. The above poem was written in response to seeing his cousin, Lady Wilmot Horton, in a mourning dress at a party of Lady Sitwell's on June 11, 1814. The poem was written by the next morning. "She Walks in Beauty" is an eighteen-line poem, It was penned in 1814, and published in 1815 in a volume of poems called Hebrew Melodies. Today, he's mostly associated with the movement we refer to as "Romanticism." Romanticism is an attitude born out of a late eighteenth century reaction to the Enlightenment, stressing powerful feelings, originality, the individual response and a return to nature. Romanticism is partly a reaction against the rationalism of the eighteenth century. That's why it's called "Romanticism" – because "Romanticism" contrasts so strongly with rationalism. Classicism, Realism and Romanticism all deal with the outside world, but Realism shows the world as it is, Romanticism as the heart tells us it should be, and Classicism as it would be in some ideal incarnation. Byron had a interesting love life filled with humor and drama about mistresses, half sisters, abuse, and divorce. Byron continued to produce poetry until the end of his life in 1824. He was only 36 when he died – he caught a fever when he was in Greece, helping to fight for Greek independence from Turkey, he was eventually celebrated as a freedom fighter as well as one of the Romantic period's greatest poets.