The Volokh Conspiracy
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Poetry Monday!: "When We Two Parted" by George Gordon, Lord Byron
"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...."
Here's "When We Two Parted" (1816) by George Gordon, Lord Byron (1788-1824). (This is on my YouTube channel, which mostly consists of my Sasha Reads playlist, plus a smattering of law-related songs.)
1.
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.2.
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.3.
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.4.
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.
For the rest of my "Sasha Reads" playlist, click here. Past poems are:
- "Ulysses" by Alfred, Lord Tennyson
- "The Pulley" by George Herbert
- "Harmonie du soir" ("Evening Harmony") by Charles Baudelaire (French)
- "Dirge Without Music" by Edna St. Vincent Millay
- "Clancy of the Overflow" by A.B. "Banjo" Paterson
- "Лотова жена" ("Lotova zhena", "Lot's wife") by Anna Akhmatova (Russian)
- "The Jumblies" by Edward Lear
- "The Conqueror Worm" by Edgar Allan Poe
- "Les Djinns" ("The Jinns") by Victor Hugo (French)
- "I Have a Rendezvous with Death" by Alan Seeger
- "When I Was One-and-Twenty" by A.E. Housman
- "Узник" ("Uznik", "The Prisoner" or "The Captive") by Aleksandr Pushkin (Russian)
- "God's Grandeur" by Gerard Manley Hopkins
- "The Song of Wandering Aengus" by William Butler Yeats
- "Je crains pas ça tellment" ("I'm not that scard about") by Raymond Queneau (French)
- "The Naming of Cats" by T.S. Eliot
- "The reticent volcano keeps…" by Emily Dickinson
- "Она" ("Ona", "She") by Zinaida Gippius (Russian)
- "Would I Be Shrived?" by John D. Swain
- "Evolution" by Langdon Smith
- "Chanson d'automne" ("Autumn Song") by Oscar Milosz (French)
- "love is more thicker than forget" by e.e. cummings
- "My Three Loves" by Henry S. Leigh
- "Я мечтою ловил уходящие тени" ("Ia mechtoiu lovil ukhodiashchie teni", "With my dreams I caught the departing shadows") by Konstantin Balmont (Russian)
- "Dane-geld" by Rudyard Kipling
- "Rules and Regulations" by Lewis Carroll
- "Vers dorés" ("Golden Lines") by Gérard de Nerval (French)
- "So That's Who I Remind Me Of" by Ogden Nash
- "The Epic" by Alfred, Lord Tennyson
- "La chambre double" ("The Double Room") by Charles Baudelaire (French)
- "Медный всадник" ("The Bronze Horseman") by Aleksandr Pushkin (Russian)
- "Herbst" ("Autumn") by Rainer Maria Rilke (German)
- "Romance de la luna, luna" ("Ballad of the Moon Moon") by Federico García Lorca (Spanish)
- "The Four Friends" by A.A. Milne
- "anyone lived in a pretty how town" by e.e. cummings
- "Листья" ("Leaves") by Fyodor Tyutchev (Russian)
- "The Pobble Who Has No Toes" by Edward Lear
- "The Persian Version" by Robert Graves
- "Les deux voix" ("The Two Voices") by Victor Hugo (French)
- "Lines Written in Dejection" by William Butler Yeats
- "Loveliest of Trees" by A.E. Housman
- "Akh, chto-to mne ne veritsia…" ("Oh, somehow I can't believe…") by Bulat Okudzhava (Russian)
- "Alone" by Edgar Allan Poe
- "The Man from Snowy River" by A.B. "Banjo" Paterson
- "À la mémoire d'une chatte naine que j'avais" ("In memory of a dwarf cat I had") by Jules Laforgue (French)
