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.
“When We Two
Parted" was written in 1816 by the British Romantic poet Lord Byron. It
describes the pain and disillusionment that follow a break-up between the
speaker and his lover. Though little detail is provided, it's implied that the
original relationship was secret—most likely an extramarital affair—and that
the speaker now feels bitter upon hearing about his lover having an affair with
someone else. Most scholars believe this poem to be about Byron's relationship
with Lady Frances Wedderburn-Webster, a married aristocrat with whom Byron had
an alleged affair. She was later rumored to have also had an illicit
relationship with the Duke of Wellington—a prominent British military
leader—which in turn, the theory goes, prompted the writing of this poem.
·
The
poem begins with the speaker recalling a past moment of parting.
·
The
parting took place quietly, without many words, but with emotional tears.
"Half
broken-hearted To sever for years,"
·
The
speaker and the other person were deeply saddened by the separation and
expected to be apart for a long time.
"Pale grew thy
cheek and cold, Colder thy kiss;"
·
The
person's face turned pale, and their farewell kiss grew colder, signifying the
emotional distance that had developed between them.
"Truly that hour
foretold Sorrow to this."
·
The
speaker looks back on that moment of parting as a foreshadowing of the ongoing
sadness and pain.
"The dew of the
morning Sunk chill on my brow— It felt like the warning Of what I feel
now."
·
The
speaker describes the cold morning dew as a symbol or precursor of the pain
they are currently experiencing.
"Thy vows are
all broken, And light is thy fame;"
·
The
person has broken their promises or commitments, and their reputation is now
tarnished or diminished in the speaker's eyes.
"I hear thy name
spoken, And share in its shame."
·
When
the speaker hears the person's name mentioned, they feel a sense of shame or
embarrassment, as if they are somehow connected to the person's actions.
"They name thee
before me, A knell to mine ear; A shudder comes o'er me— Why wert thou so
dear?"
·
The
mention of the person's name is like a funeral knell to the speaker's ears,
causing them to shudder. They question why they held the person in such high
regard in the first place.
"They know not I
knew thee, Who knew thee too well— Long, long shall I rue thee, Too deeply to
tell."
·
Others
are unaware of the speaker's deep knowledge of the person, and the speaker
acknowledges that they knew the person intimately. They will regret their
association with the person for a long time, but the depth of their regret is
too profound to express.
"In secret we
met— In silence I grieve, That thy heart could forget, Thy spirit
deceive."
·
The
speaker and the person met in secret, and now, in silence, the speaker grieves
over the fact that the person's heart has moved on and their true nature has
deceived the speaker.
"If I should
meet thee After long years, How should I greet thee?— With silence and
tears."
·
The
poem concludes with the speaker contemplating the possibility of meeting the
person again after many years. They wonder how they would react and ultimately
conclude that they would respond with silence and tears, reflecting the
enduring pain of the separation and the betrayal they feel.
“When We Two Parted” Themes
Love and Disillusionment
“When We Two Parted” is a bitter poem about the end of a
relationship. The speaker addresses the poem to an ex-lover, and so provides
insight into the ongoing—and shapeshifting—pain of a breakup. Breakups, the
poem argues, are not neat endings after which exes simply go their separate
ways. Instead, they're often characterized by lingering, complicated pain and
anger. The poem's main sentiments are disillusionment and frustration as the
speaker learns that his beloved has moved on, and even wonders how he ever
cared about her so much in the first place. The poem, then, speaks to the sheer
messiness of breakups, and also to how quickly lovers’ perceptions of each
other can change when they're no longer together.
The poem begins by describing the actual breakup. The
“broken-hearted” lovers “parted in silence and tears”—they were “sever[ed]”
from one another, indicating the almost physical pain of ending a relationship.
But something about the sudden distance between the two lovers—the physical and
emotional separation—seemed to predict the way that the speaker would come to
feel betrayed in later years. For the speaker, this sudden lack of affection
foreshadows the even worse pain the lover will cause him in the future. The
circumstances of this relationship and the subsequent fallout are not made
clear, but the feeling of being let down is definitely present.
The speaker then relates how hearing other people talk
about the lover brings him pain. But that's also because of the nature of this
hearsay: it seems to be gossip of some sort, and it's likely that this gossip
relates to a new affair conducted by the
speaker's ex. The speaker then wonders, a little meanly perhaps, how he ever
held his lover “so dear.” That is, how could he care so much about someone who
seems to have forgotten him—and was their love as real as he thought it was in
the first place?
These thoughts lead him to declare that he'll “rue” the
lover for a “long, long” time, again depicting the lasting messiness of
breakups. And, in a way, it’s because the speaker perceives this change in
the lover that his own attitude changes. It's almost
as though, despite the breakup, he wants the ex to remain his (again speaking
to the complicated feelings that come with the end of a relationship). Hearing
rumors about the lover indicates that she may have moved on: the lover has
given her heart to someone else, and in doing so denigrated what she and the
speaker had.
Which is why, even after years have passed, this
relationship still brings the speaker to
“tears.” People move on with their lives, the poem seems to say, but this
doesn’t mean that they move on completely from past loves. Feelings are messy
and complicated, hanging around unwanted and unwarranted—and in this case,
remaining as painful as ever, even as they change in other ways.
It’s also worth noting the poem’s specific context. The
poem is thought to have been written about Byron’s relationship with the
aristocrat Lady Webster. After their affair ended, Byron heard the rumor that
she had also had an affair with the Duke of Wellington, a British military
leader who had just defeated Napoleon. It’s thought that Byron felt embittered
upon hearing of this other affair, and was thus spurred to write the poem. This
would explain some of the references to the speaker hearing the lover’s name
associated with “shame” and “fame”—and why the affair was (and still is)
shrouded in secrecy.
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