The Full Text of “When We Two Parted”
1When we two parted
2 In silence and tears,
3Half broken-hearted
4 To sever for years,
5Pale grew thy cheek and cold,
6 Colder thy kiss;
7Truly that hour foretold
8 Sorrow to this.
9The dew of the morning
10 Sunk chill on my brow—
11It felt like the warning
12 Of what I feel now.
13Thy vows are all broken,
14 And light is thy fame;
15I hear thy name spoken,
16 And share in its shame.
17They name thee before me,
18 A knell to mine ear;
19A shudder comes o'er me—
20 Why wert thou so dear?
21They know not I knew thee,
22 Who knew thee too well—
23Long, long shall I rue thee,
24 Too deeply to tell.
25In secret we met—
26 In silence I grieve,
27That thy heart could forget,
28 Thy spirit deceive.
29If I should meet thee
30 After long years,
31How should I greet thee?—
32 With silence and tears.
The Full Text of “When We Two Parted”
1When we two parted
2 In silence and tears,
3Half broken-hearted
4 To sever for years,
5Pale grew thy cheek and cold,
6 Colder thy kiss;
7Truly that hour foretold
8 Sorrow to this.
9The dew of the morning
10 Sunk chill on my brow—
11It felt like the warning
12 Of what I feel now.
13Thy vows are all broken,
14 And light is thy fame;
15I hear thy name spoken,
16 And share in its shame.
17They name thee before me,
18 A knell to mine ear;
19A shudder comes o'er me—
20 Why wert thou so dear?
21They know not I knew thee,
22 Who knew thee too well—
23Long, long shall I rue thee,
24 Too deeply to tell.
25In secret we met—
26 In silence I grieve,
27That thy heart could forget,
28 Thy spirit deceive.
29If I should meet thee
30 After long years,
31How should I greet thee?—
32 With silence and tears.
-
“When We Two Parted” Introduction
-
"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.
-
-
“When We Two Parted” Summary
-
When you and I broke up, we were silent and tearful. Our hearts were broken as we tore ourselves apart from each other for years to come. During the break-up, your cheek became pale and cold to the touch—your kiss was even colder. It seems to me that the way we split up predicted the pain and sadness I feel now.
The morning dew sunk coldly into my forehead, foreshadowing the emotional coldness I now sense. All your promises are broken—and people gossip about you. When I hear someone say your name, I feel embarrassed.
Hearing your name is like a funeral bell ringing in my ear—it makes me shiver. Why did I ever love you like I did? People don't know how well I knew you, that in fact I knew you too well. I'll regret that for a long time, more deeply than I can say.
Our relationship was a secret, and so I grieve it secretly—and I hate that you have forgotten me, and that you misled me. If I meet you again after years have gone by, what should I do? I'll greet you silently, and with tears.
-
-
“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.
- See where this theme is active in the poem.
-
-
Line-by-Line Explanation & Analysis of “When We Two Parted”
-
Lines 1-4
When we two parted
In silence and tears,
Half broken-hearted
To sever for years,The poem's opening line sets things firmly in the past tense: the speaker reflecting on the painful separation from his former lover, and their relationship is definitely over. The alliterating /w/ sounds ("When we") in this phrase—as a kind of twosome—subtly hints at the former union between these two people.
By referring to "we," the speaker also introduces the fact that the entire poem is written using the literary device apostrophe. That is, it's addressed directly to his ex-lover, but she doesn't participate in the conversation; instead, it's as if the reader is eavesdropping on a private speech from the speaker to one very specific individual. The repeated use of words like "thy" and "thee" continues to emphasize this throughout the poem.
Then, the speaker explains that the lovers "parted / in silence and tears." The mention of "tears" is clear enough—the lovers were sad when they went their separate ways. The structure of the poem's lines subtly reinforces this idea throughout. Though the lines are short, the phrases tend to run over two lines through the use of enjambment. This means that most phrases are "broken" into two, mirroring the lovers' split. The opening lines follow this pattern, with one distinct phrase running across lines 1 and 2 and another covering lines 3 and 4.
The "silence," though, is more mysterious, and requires the rest of the poem for context. It hints at the secrecy surrounding the lovers' relationship. Most scholars agree that Byron wrote the poem about an affair he had with a married aristocrat, Lady Frances Wedderburn-Webster. Because the poem uses "I," "you," and "we," throughout, it feels as though the reader isn't really invited to witness to this exchange, acting instead as a kind of voyeur eavesdropping on an intimate and likely illicit conversation.
Lines 3 and 4 offer more information about the break-up. The speaker and his lover "sever[ed] for years," with the verb "sever" indicating the almost physical pain of the split. The alliteration of "half broken-hearted" creates another pair of sounds, this time at a greater distance from one another than the alliteration in line 1. This subtle shift reinforces the idea that the lovers are now separated where they were once close.
-
Lines 5-10
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— -
Lines 11-16
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. -
Lines 17-20
They name thee before me,
A knell to mine ear;
A shudder comes o'er me—
Why wert thou so dear? -
Lines 21-24
They know not I knew thee,
Who knew thee too well—
Long, long shall I rue thee,
Too deeply to tell. -
Lines 25-28
In secret we met—
In silence I grieve,
That thy heart could forget,
Thy spirit deceive. -
Lines 29-32
If I should meet thee
After long years,
How should I greet thee?—
With silence and tears.
-
-
“When We Two Parted” Poetic Devices & Figurative Language
-
Alliteration
Alliteration is a prominent feature of "When We Two Parted." Even the title alliterates with its two /w/ sounds! In most instances, the alliterative sounds come as a pair. The poem is all about a relationship between two people—a couple—and the alliteration is often coupled too. This is almost like a kind of painful joke for the speaker, with the actual sound of his words subtly showcasing his fixation on his previous relationship. The paired words in each instance of alliteration highlight the fact that the speaker himself is no longer part of a couple.
Additionally, these instances of alliteration sometimes emphasize the conceptual connection between two words and reinforce their meaning in the lines. In lines 5 and 6, for instance, the alliteration between "cold" and "colder" intensifies the sense of a chill running through these two lines.
In line 16, the alliteration of "share" and "shame" also makes the line more dramatic, with the shared sounds conveying the way in which the speaker himself "share[s]" the bad feeling about his ex-lover.
Alliteration in lines 25 and 26 joins "secret" with "silence." This informs the reader about the nature of the discussed relationship. Clearly, it was some kind of affair or illicit union, and the conceptual link between secrecy and silence speaks to the way that the speaker can't seem to let go of his bitterness—perhaps because he can't mention it out loud.
This alliteration specifically is part of the sibilance that echoes throughout lines 25 to 28, with "secret," "silence," "spirit," and "deceive." On the one hand, the /s/ sound is associated with hushed whispering—and, as such, seems appropriate here given that the speaker is talking about conducting the affair and grieving in silent secrecy. But sibilance is also associated with a kind of snake-like hissing. Snakes are symbols of evil and deception—think of the Garden of Eden—and as such the sibilance here subtly reinforces the idea of the speaker's lover as a sinful and deceptive.
- See where this poetic device appears in the poem.
-
Aporia
- See where this poetic device appears in the poem.
-
Diacope
- See where this poetic device appears in the poem.
-
Enjambment
- See where this poetic device appears in the poem.
-
Metaphor
- See where this poetic device appears in the poem.
-
Apostrophe
- See where this poetic device appears in the poem.
-
Epizeuxis
- See where this poetic device appears in the poem.
-
Parallelism
- See where this poetic device appears in the poem.
-
-
"When We Two Parted" 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.
- Sever
- Thy
- Chill
- Brow
- Vows
- Light
- Thee
- Knell
- Mine
- Shudder
- O'er
- Wert
- Thou
- Dear
- Rue
-
Torn apart.
- See where this vocabulary word appears in the poem.
-
Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme of “When We Two Parted”
-
Form
"When We Two Parted" is made up of four octets (eight line stanzas). This regular form is typical of Byron's poetry. Each of these stanzas can also be broken down further into two sets of quatrains.
In a sense, the poem ends up where it starts. It begins by stating that when the speaker and his lover parted, it was "in silence and tears." The first stanza sees the speaker reflecting on that moment, and how it seemed to predict what was to come.
The second and third stanzas relate to the way the speaker feels about his ex-lover in the present day. He hears people talk about the ex, and finds it painful whenever they do—in part because of the raw pain of the break-up, but also because this gossip seems to relate to another affair the ex is having. There's more than a hint of jealousy and bitterness at play. At the end, then, the poem folds back in on itself as the speaker asks how he should greet his ex-lover when he next sees her—and then says that this meeting will also occur "with silence and tears."
Overall, the poem's rigid structure and return to the opening lines reinforce the sense that the speaker is trapped in his grief; he can't move on from this relationship any more than the poem can break out of this form.
-
Meter
Because of its short lines, the poem's meter seems more complicated than it actually is. When read out loud, the phrases tend to sound like they are organized in dactylic feet (a poetic foot made up of two unstressed beats followed by one stressed), plus an extra stressed syllable at the end of each phrase:
When we two | parted [i]n | silence and | tears,
Half broken- | hearted [t]o | sever for | years,This sound continues throughout the poem but, of course, is not how it is actually written on the page! Instead, the phrases tend to be split across two lines, which evokes the break-up at the center of the poem: the sentences are themselves are literally broken up.
Scanning it on the page, then, the poem reads as a somewhat freeform version of accentual verse—that is, verse organized based on the specific number of accents in each line. There tend to be two accents in each line, but they don't fall at the same spots in each line. For example, consider the first two lines:
When we two parted
In silence and tears,The fact that most lines have two accents ties into the broader importance of the number two in the poem. Just as the pairs of alliterative words in many lines evoke the idea of a couple, the pairs of accented syllables in the meter highlight the same idea—and provide a somewhat cruel contrast to the fact that the speaker himself is no longer part of a couple.
-
Rhyme Scheme
"When We Two Parted" is written with a regular rhyme scheme that follows the same form in every stanza:
ABABCDCD
In practice, this means that every end-word has a partner soon after. This is a deliberate strategy, and it highlights the way almost all of the poem's phrases are broken in two by line breaks. When heard out loud, the rhyme scheme gives the poem a couplet feel.
The use of pairs is important: the poem describes how the speaker and his lover were once a pair and have now become individuals again, so the paired rhymes separated by non-rhymed lines reflect this sense of simultaneous unity and division.
It's also worth noting that the end-words for lines 21, 23, 29, and 31—the second halves of the last two stanzas—are all "thee." This reinforces the speaker's fixation on his ex-lover.
-
-
“When We Two Parted” Speaker
-
"When We Two Parted" doesn't name its speaker, but the poem is widely interpreted by critics to be told from the perspective of Byron himself. Byron's own letters draw a link between the poem and his affair—which may or may not have been consummated—with a British aristocrat, Lady Frances Wedderburn-Webster, who, as her title suggests, was married at the time. She was subsequently rumored to have had an affair with the Duke of Wellington, one of Britain's most notable military leaders. It was around the time of hearing about this rumored affair that Byron is said to have written this poem—though he did delete a stanza that named Lady Frances specifically. This real-life context and its credible influence on the poem are the reason that this guide uses masculine pronouns in reference to the speaker and feminine pronouns in reference to his lover.
In any case, the speaker in the poem is clearly embittered, and perhaps even a little confused. He still feels the pain of the break-up, even though it seems to have taken place years ago—and is caused further pain when he hears people talk about his ex-lover and rumors of her new affair. In a way, he is stuck, still caught up in the "silence and tears" that marked the end of the relationship. Indeed, the poem also feels very intimate—as though there is only really one intended reader: the ex-lover.
-
-
“When We Two Parted” Setting
-
"When We Two Parted" compares two moments in time: the actual break-up between the speaker and his lover, and the poem's present. Other than that, it's very light on specifics—there is no real sense of place. Instead, the poem takes place in the world of human emotions, with the speaker delving deep into his psyche to examine how he feels about his ex-lover.
The reference to "They" in the third stanza appears to indicate a kind of gossiping crowd, perhaps subtly suggesting some kind of urbane social world. The poem ends on a glimpse into the future—which, like the past, is likely to be shrouded in "silence and tears."
-
-
Literary and Historical Context of “When We Two Parted”
-
Literary Context
Lord Byron—George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron, to be precise—is one of English literature's most famous figures. He was one of the British Romantic poets, specifically the second generation (along with Percy Bysshe Shelley and John Keats).
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 critics. Byron got back at 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 has a number of qualities 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.
This particular poem doesn't share many of the attributes of Romanticism, except for one key focus: the poem is entirely concerned with the speaker's subjective experience, placing an emphasis on the individual at the (broken) heart of the poem.
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 of Britain; for instance, 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. Additionally, 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 he 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.
This poem perhaps has a stronger link to the French Revolution than is first apparent. The poem is thought to have been written about Byron’s relationship with the married aristocrat Lady Frances Wedderburn-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. Wellington was one of the few men whose fame rivaled—or even eclipsed, perhaps—Lord Byron's. It is thought that Byron felt embittered upon hearing of this latter affair, and was thus spurred on 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 shrouded in secrecy.
-
-
More “When We Two Parted” Resources
-
External Resources
-
Byron's Life and More Poems — A good resource from the Poetry Foundation with biographical details on Byron, plus more of his poems.
-
Poems About Break-ups — A contemporary list of poems on an age-old subject: saying goodbye to a relationship.
-
A Scathing Review — A less-than-glowing review of Byron's first collection of poems.
-
Lord Byron's Revenge — Byron launches an attack on the literary establishment—one which helped him make his name.
-
Byron's Scandals — A documentary about Lord Byron's more salacious side.
-
-
LitCharts on Other Poems by Lord Byron
-
