The Full Text of “She Walks in Beauty”
1She walks in beauty, like the night
2Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
3And all that’s best of dark and bright
4Meet in her aspect and her eyes;
5Thus mellowed to that tender light
6Which heaven to gaudy day denies.
7One shade the more, one ray the less,
8Had half impaired the nameless grace
9Which waves in every raven tress,
10Or softly lightens o’er her face;
11Where thoughts serenely sweet express,
12How pure, how dear their dwelling-place.
13And on that cheek, and o’er that brow,
14So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,
15The smiles that win, the tints that glow,
16But tell of days in goodness spent,
17A mind at peace with all below,
18A heart whose love is innocent!
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“She Walks in Beauty” Introduction
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"She Walks in Beauty" is a famous poem by British Romantic poet Lord Byron, first published in 1815. The poem praises and seeks to capture a sense of the beauty of a particular woman. The speaker compares this woman to a lovely night with a clear starry sky, and goes on to convey her beauty as a harmonious "meeting" between darkness and light. After its discussion of physical attractiveness, the poem then portrays this outer beauty as representative of inner goodness and virtue.
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“She Walks in Beauty” Summary
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The speaker compares a beautiful woman—who is walking—to a clear night sky full of bright stars. The finest light and darkness come together in harmony in this woman's appearance, particularly within her eyes. This gentle and delicate play of light is heavenly—indeed, heaven usually refuses to grant this supernatural light to the showy daytime.
A touch more shade or even one ray of light would have greatly diminished the woman's beauty. This beauty, which is hard to put into words, shows itself in every strand of the woman's hair, and gently falls on her face. Her sweet, angelic emotions play out on her face, revealing how pure and precious this woman is.
On the woman's cheek and forehead—softly and calmly, but noticeably—appear winning smiles and a glowing skin tone. These features reveal that the woman spends her days virtuously, that she possesses a peaceful mind, and that she has an innocent, loving heart.
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“She Walks in Beauty” Themes
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Beauty and Harmony
As its title might suggest, “She Walks in Beauty” is a poem that praises a woman’s beauty. More specifically, it presents that beauty as a kind of harmony that is as perfect as it is rare. Indeed, that’s the main point of the poem—that this particular woman’s beauty is practically unparalleled because of the exquisite harmony and visual balance of her looks. Beauty, the poem thus suggests, is perfection achieved through harmony. And as the poem progresses, it makes clear that this harmony is delicate and fragile—potentially altered by even the smallest of changes.
The poem begins by establishing a sense of the speaker’s wonder at the woman’s majestic beauty. The speaker doesn’t say that the woman walks beautifully—but that she walks in beauty. This unusual construction helps with the sense that the woman’s beauty is truly remarkable, so vast and impressive that it seems to surround this woman like an aura or cloud. The poem quickly reveals what it believes to be the source of such beauty: the woman’s physical appearance brings together “all that’s best of dark and bright.” This suggests that beauty is a harmony between distinct elements—darkness and light. Beauty takes the “best” of these elements and places them in a delicate balance.
The poem then expands on this marriage of light and dark in stanza 2. Here, beauty is presented as almost beyond language, a “nameless grace.” The complex and intensely beautiful interplay between light (“ray[s]”) and dark (“shade”) is made possible only by the shape and contours of the woman’s physical appearance. This reinforces the idea that beauty is a kind of perfection achieved through harmony.
Part of the power of beauty is in its rarity. As lines 5 and 6 make clear, the woman’s harmonious beauty is not an everyday occurrence—this interplay of light and dark is the exclusive preserve of “heaven,” not the “gaudy day[s]” of life on earth. Beauty, then, also has an air of the divine or supernatural that contributes to this sense of rarity—comparable to sighting a comet or eclipse, perhaps. Furthermore, beauty is all-the-rarer because the harmony required for it to exist is so fragile. In the second stanza, the speaker outlines how even one shade—or one ray—out of place in the interplay of light and dark on the woman’s hair would upset her beauty; indeed, it would be “half impaired.”
It’s also worth noting that the common literary associations of darkness tend to be mystery and fear (in the works of Edgar Allan Poe, for example). Contrastingly, light is often linked to purity, beauty, and love (e.g., Carol Ann Duffy’s “Valentine” or Shakespeare’s “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?”) The beauty in “She Walks in Beauty” depends on both light and dark, bringing them together in harmony. Accordingly, the woman’s beauty is all the more powerful and uncommon. “She Walks in Beauty,” then, is a poem that cherishes physical beauty and perfection. In the figure of the woman that it addresses, it sees an unparalleled example of perfect beauty and seeks to explain it, even though it may prove impossible to characterize its “nameless grace,” as a type of rare harmony that brings together light and dark.
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Inner Beauty vs. Outer Beauty
While “She walks in Beauty” primarily focuses on physical beauty, it also explores the relationship between inner beauty and outer beauty. It portrays these concepts as closely interconnected. Indeed, the woman’s outer appearance is read as a sign of her inner serenity, peacefulness, and innocence.
The poem develops a sense of physical beauty before introducing the idea that this type of beauty is linked to a person’s interior state. Lines 1-10 help the reader grasp just how rare and powerful this woman’s beauty is, which is further presented as a delicate—near impossible—balance between light and dark.
The poem then shifts, however, and begins to discuss the relationship between this outer loveliness and the woman's inner self. The woman’s face is portrayed as the site on which her thoughts are “expressed.” These thoughts, in turn, are characterized as “serenely sweet”; the poem maps the harmoniousness of the woman’s beauty onto her presumed inner state (that is, since she is so lovely, her thoughts must also be lovely). Indeed, the expression of her thoughts on her face serves to reinforce the purity and “dearness” (preciousness) of their “dwelling-place.” This could be interpreted as the thoughts reinforcing the woman’s outer beauty, or perhaps they speak of a kind of beauty that incorporates both physical appearance and personality/character.
The third stanza picks up on the development of lines 11 and 12, focusing on the relationship between inner and outer beauty. The speaker lists the woman’s fine features—her “cheek,” “brow,” “smiles,” and “tints” (skin)—and suggests that they express an inner goodness. In other words, her good looks are the sign of good virtues: the speaker believes that woman spends her days in “goodness,” has a peaceful mind, and a loving, innocent heart.
Outer beauty, then, becomes a symbol of inner beauty. Indeed, this inner beauty enhances the outer beauty because, if the outer beauty is linked to the woman’s facial expressions, these expressions are the result of inner emotions. Her outer beauty and inner “goodness” are in a kind of feedback loop, each intensifying the other.
Of course, it’s up to the reader to decide how much this idea convinces them. The poem spends most of its time focusing on physical beauty, and the reader learns little about the woman other than what the speaker tells them. Regardless, in the speaker’s opinion at least, outer beauty is a reflection of inner beauty—and indeed, both are in harmony with one another.
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Line-by-Line Explanation & Analysis of “She Walks in Beauty”
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Lines 1-2
She walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies;The poem opens with the same words that form the title: "She walks in beauty." These four simple words quickly create an atmosphere of admiration and mystery. The reader gathers that the poem is, most likely, going to praise a woman's beauty. But this isn't a beautiful woman taking a walk, nor a woman walking beautifully—beauty is something that she walks inside of.
The caesura break after "beauty" allows the reader to consider what it means to be in beauty, as opposed to merely beautiful. That said, the meaning here is fairly ambiguous. It could be that the woman "walks in beauty" because, as a prime example of beauty, she is in a way at its gravitational center. In other words, beauty is drawn to her and surrounds her. This is supported by the idea in lines 3 and 4 (that "dark and bright" light are drawn to the woman's appearance). It could also be that her own beauty somehow makes the world around her more beautiful—like an aura of beauty that surrounds her as she walks. The contrast between "night" and "starry skies" also sets up the poem's central idea: that beauty is a kind of perfection achieved through harmony. In this particular case, it's specifically through a delicate balance of "dark and bright."
An already complicated sentiment is complicated further by the simile that follows. Either the woman, the way she walks, or beauty itself is compared to "the night / of cloudless climes and starry skies." It's a fairly elusive simile because it's not clear exactly which elements of the sentence are being compared—though arguably this heightens the sense of mystery around the woman's unparalleled physical beauty.
The poem also specifies a particular kind of night. These are nights when there isn't a cloud in the sky and the stars are shining bright. Here, then, the poem starts to develop its interplay of light and dark—an antithesis that is resolved in the beauty of the woman. The heavy alliteration (and sibilance) here is deliberately ornamental and decorative, and is meant to suggest physical beauty:
Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
Also worth noting is the way in which the first two lines are paired together through enjambment—they are part of the same sentence. Line 2 is then end-stopped, further reinforcing the sense that the first two lines make a distinct pair. This is quite common in the poem and is suggestive of the idea of beauty as a kind of harmony or perfection—the two lines joining to make each other complete.
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Lines 3-6
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.
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Lines 7-10
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; -
Lines 11-12
Where thoughts serenely sweet express,
How pure, how dear their dwelling-place. -
Lines 13-18
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!
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“She Walks in Beauty” Poetic Devices & Figurative Language
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Alliteration
"She Walks in Beauty" makes frequent use of alliteration. For the most part, the alliteration is meant to reflect beauty on a linguistic level. In other words, the alliteration helps the poem itself sound beautiful to match the fact that it is talking about beauty. Indeed, it's quite ornate, even showy at times. It draws the reader's attention to the fact that this is capital-P Poetry.
The first example of alliteration is in line 2: "cloudless climes and starry skies." The alliteration here is not subtle, and forms two obvious pairs—the hard /c/ sound and the /s/ sound (which is specifically an example of sibilance). As the poem intends to establish beauty as a kind of perfection achieved through harmony (in this case, between light and dark), the pairing-off of sounds creates a sense of harmoniousness; in other words, the sounds—two /c/ sounds in a row followed by two /s/ sounds in a row—create a sense of balance and symmetry.
The next key example is between lines 4 and 5, with "Meet" and "mellowed." "Meet" is a stressed syllable, which opens the line with a trochee and upsets the poem's iambic tetrameter:
Meet in her aspect and her eyes
This stress makes the word "Meet" sound particularly prominent, allowing for the alliteration between this and "mellowed" to ring out despite the relatively wide distance between these two words. "Mellowed" in turn shows the reader what happens when the "best of dark and bright / Meet" in the appearance of the woman. As such, cause is linked with effect through sound.
Line 9 has alliteration through the phrase "Which waves," which is part of the stanza's broader heavy use of consonance, assonance, and sibilance. All of these techniques function as ornamentation, intended to make the stanza sound "prettier" in order to reflect the woman's beauty.
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Antithesis
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Assonance
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Caesura
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Consonance
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Diacope
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Enjambment
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Sibilance
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Simile
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End-Stopped Line
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Parallelism
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“She Walks in Beauty” Vocabulary
Select any word below to get its definition in the context of the poem. The words are listed in the order in which they appear in the poem.
- Climes
- Aspect
- Thus
- Mellowed
- Gaudy
- Had
- Impaired
- Raven Tress
- O'er
- Serenely
- Dwelling-Place
- Eloquent
- Tints
- But
Climes-
A reference to a geographical region specifically related to its weather; climates. Greece, for example, has sunnier climes than Norway.
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Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme of “She Walks in Beauty”
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Form
"She Walks in Beauty" has a simple and regular form. It is comprised of three six-line stanzas, a.k.a. sestets, all of which are iambic tetrameter.
Each sestet serves a slightly different purpose in developing the poem's discussion of beauty. The first is simply to establish the beauty of the poem's subject: a woman seen by the speaker. The speaker develops the idea that beauty is a form of perfection achieved through harmony, particularly in this case through the "meeting" of darkness and light. The rarity of this harmony is also established through the mention of heaven—this is not an everyday, "gaudy" beauty.
The second stanza portrays this beauty as delicate and fragile. Even a slight change to the light—one shade more or one ray less—would greatly diminish this beauty. Line 11 marks a shift in the poem in which the discussion moves beyond physical appearance and starts to consider inner beauty too.
The third stanza picks up on this idea, honing on the individual features of the woman's face and building a composite picture that speaks of inner goodness, peace, and love. In other words, the woman's physical attractiveness is read by the speaker as signal of an equally beautiful interior state. The poem builds to its rhetorical height, denoted by the final—and only—exclamation mark.
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Meter
"She Walks in Beauty" has a regular metrical scheme throughout: iambic tetrameter. This means there are four poetic feet per line, each consisting of a da DUM syllable pattern.
Looked at broadly, perhaps it is fitting that the poem is so regular in terms of meter, stanza shape, and rhyme—together, these traits denote a sense of order, harmony, and symmetry befitting the type of rare beauty the poem attempts to describe. On another general point, it's worth remembering that iambs are often associated with walking. Their steady groups of two syllables mimic the alternating combination of left foot and right foot—indeed, extending the analogy further, people themselves have one stronger and one weaker foot (just as the iamb has a stronger and weaker syllable). The way this steady rhythm evokes the woman's walk is evident from the beginning:
She walks in beau-ty, like the night
Of cloud-less climes and star-ry skies;In fact, there is only one deviation from this metrical regularity throughout the whole poem. This happens in line 4, when the line uses a trochee (stressed-unstressed, basically the opposite of an iamb) in the first foot. This places sudden and dramatic stress on the verb "Meet," which helps creates the sense of "dark and bright" being forced together:
Meet in her as-pect and her eyes;
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Rhyme Scheme
The rhyme scheme in "She Walks in Beauty" is highly regular, with each six-line stanza following a pattern of:
ABABAB
Apart from the slight slant rhyme of "brow," "glow," and "below," in the third stanza, these are all strong, perfect rhymes.
Generally speaking, the neatness of the rhyme scheme is intended to create a sense of harmony and symmetry. Given that one of the poem's main ideas is that beauty is a kind of perfection achieved through harmony, it makes sense that the rhymes would ring out so clearly and cleanly.
Furthermore, the fact that each stanza uses only two different rhyme sounds helps to mirror the poem's central antithesis between light and dark. Each stanza is a kind of fusion between these two different rhyme sounds, just as the woman's beauty brings together the "best of dark and bright."
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“She Walks in Beauty” Speaker
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The speaker in "She Walks in Beauty" is not specified—given no name, age, occupation, nor gender. This adds to the universality of the poem and suggests that anyone would be able to appreciate this woman's beauty. That said, it's also worth noting that the Lord Byron himself is often equated with the poem's speaker. So the story goes, the poem was written after a party Byron attended at which he saw a particularly beautiful woman (who was the wife of his cousin).
In any case, the speaker is a person preoccupied by a contemplation of beauty, physical or otherwise—though perhaps mostly physical; it's not until past the poem's midway point that the speaker starts to discuss the woman's inner beauty.
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“She Walks in Beauty” Setting
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"She Walks in Beauty" doesn't really have a particular sense of location or place. Primarily, it takes place in the mind of the speaker, who is trying to understand the astonishing beauty of a particular woman. The poem does evoke a kind of setting, mentioning a clear and starry night in the opening lines and "tender light" later in the stanza. There is a certain atmosphere, then, one which is constructed on a kind of gentle and delicate light—but it's not really wedded to a particular location. The poem also casts a kind of microscopic gaze on the woman's outer appearance, making this is a part of the setting too.
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Literary and Historical Context of “She Walks in Beauty”
Literary Context
Lord Byron—George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron to be precise—is one of English literature's most infamous figures. He was part of the British Romantic poets, in particular the second generation (along with Percy Bysshe Shelley and John Keats). This particular poem was published in his collection Hebrew Melodies (1815), which was originally intended to be set to music (which perhaps is reflected in the simplicity of the poem's meter).
Though Byron is now considered one of the English language's foremost poets, his early forays into the literary world were not very successful. Indeed, his first volume of poetry was slammed by the critics. Byron got his own back on the literary establishment by publishing his satire, "English Bards and Scotch Reviewers" (1809), which took aim at contemporaries like William Wordsworth and Samuel Coleridge (a move that he re-evaluated later in life).
Byron does have a number of aspects in common with the usual associations of Romanticism. These include political engagement, extensive travel, and a taste for freedom. That said, he occupies in a place in Romanticism like no other. After publishing his long poem Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, Byron became a celebrity on a scale that was practically unknown at the time. That poem saw the genesis of the "Byronic hero," a well-educated, cunning, and charming man who has a disdain for authority. Many readers saw Byron himself as the archetype for this hero.
Historical Context
Byron lived during an age of considerable upheaval. For one thing, he was born on the cusp of the French Revolution, when French citizens overthrew the country's absolute monarchy and showed the rest of Europe how formidable the people, when banded together, could be. The French Revolution, initially at least, was well-received in some quarters in Britain; William Wordsworth, another Romantic poet, praised it in his Prelude: "Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive." Not long before the French Revolution, America had also rebelled against its colonial British rulers. Finally, the late 18th and early 19th century also marked the First Industrial Revolution in England, a time of widespread societal change spurred by new technologies and manufacturing processes.
Byron also strongly admired Greek culture and Byron supported the Greeks in their attempts to win independence from the Ottoman Empire. He spent much of his personal fortune on improving the conditions of Greek ships and soldiers. The Greek side had a number of internal conflicts, with Byron sometimes acting as mediator. It was in Greece that he died in 1824 at the age of 36 from fever.
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More “She Walks in Beauty” Resources
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External Resources
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A Reading of the Poem — The poem read by Tom O'Bedlam.
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Byron's Scandals — A documentary about Lord Byron's more salacious side.
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Lord Byron's Revenge — Byron launches an attack on the literary establishment—one which helped him make his name.
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Byron's Life and More Poems — A good resource from the Poetry Foundation with biographical details on Byron, plus more of his poems.
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A Scathing Review — A review of Byron's first collection of poems, which isn't exactly full of praise!
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LitCharts on Other Poems by Lord Byron
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