when we two parted

• "when we two parted"

  • alliteration of "when we" alludes to difficulty being expressed by speaker
  • "we" addresses former lover directly; personal
• "in silence and tears"

  • could means they had nothing left to say or their relationship was secret
  • sibilance of "silence" and "tears" creates sound of discomfort for listener; funeral-like connotations
  • repetition of "silence and tears" emphasises profound emotional impact and pain of separation
  • also suggests the love was deeply felt and cherished but ultimately couldn't be sustained - this led to parting filled with unspoken grief and sense of loss
• "half broken-hearted"

  • maybe they weren't properly in love
  • narrator seems deeply affected by the breakup so he may be accusing lover of only being "half" in love with him
  • or he could be saying that he felt like he was the "half" of the couple that was actually in love; implying that she was never in love with him
  • the plosive b sound between the two h sounds shows that something strong came between them which ultimately led to the separation of them, mirrored by the b sound between the h sounds
• "to sever for years"

  • "sever" has violent connotations
  • traumatic and painful parting
• "pale grew thy cheek and cold, colder thy kiss"

  • "pale" "cheek" and "cold" "kiss" has death-like connotations; corpse
  • could also mean the feelings she had for him have died
  • "grew" implies relationship never ends; it just changes over time
  • he is mourning the relationship; death imagery
  • hard c/k sounds emphasise coldness
• "truly that hour foretold sorrow to this"

  • enjambment highlights link between past and present; sorrow is ongoing
• "the dew of the morning"

  • fresh, natural connotations of morning dew subverted
  • shows speaker's sadness
  • overwhelming desperation
  • "dew" image foreshadows speaker's tears to come
• "sunk chill on my brow"

  • cold imagery throughout highlights lack of warmth in byron's life after the relationship has ended
  • reflects the coldness between the pair
  • "sunk" implies he is feeling heaviness due to lack of love
• "it felt like the warning of what i feel now"

  • dew image has foreshadowed the tears he "[feels] now"
• "thy vows are all broken"

  • implies breakdown of marriage
  • loss of important relationship and breaking of sacred promise
  • "broken" links to "broken-hearted" in stanza 1
• "and light is thy fame"

  • "light" implies weak and flimsy
  • her reputation damaged as people know of her affairs
• "i hear thy name spoken"

  • painful for him to hear about the affairs of his former lover
• "and share in its shame"

  • sibilant alliteration
  • emphasises shame and links to secrecy and silence
• "they name thee before me"

  • painful for him to hear about the affairs of his former lover
• "a knell in mine ear"

  • alludes to sound of funeral bell ("knell")
  • develops death metaphor
  • adds to mourning image
• "a shudder comes o'er me"

  • synesthesia; overwhelming of senses - mirrors all-consuming nature of their relationship
  • "shudder" reflects the physical impact of the sadness this parting has brought byron
• "why wert thou so dear?"

  • rhetorical question; uncertain around someone who he was familiar with
  • deep affection
• "they know not i knew thee"

  • directly addresses former lover with "thee"
  • shows he is pre-occupied by his former lover and that her actions still upset him
• "who knew thee too well - long, long shall i rue thee"

  • "long, long" shows state of hopelessness; emphasises how long he will feel the regret
  • regret as well as sadness - "rue"
  • repetition of "long" emphasises enduring nature of speaker's regret and depth of feelings
• "too deeply to tell"

  • has to stay silent as he cannot express his pain; suggests intensity of emotion that goes beyond words & a sense that the true impact of the loss can't be fully articulated
  • also due to how he must keep their past relationship secret - no one knew
  • hints at secret, internalised pain that the speaker will carry with them for a long time, perhaps forever
• "in secret we met"

  • alludes to affair
  • one of the rare uses of collective pronoun
  • "met" implies they used to enjoy unity but now they have reverted to being separate entities
• "in silence i grieve"

  • no one knew they were lovers so he cannot talk about the pain
  • "grieve" creates mourning image; death
• "that thy heart could forget, thy spirit deceive"

  • "forget" and "deceive"; accusatory language shows his anger
• "if i should meet thee after long years"

  • switch to future
  • "long" is repeated again
  • speaker has hope they will reunite
  • "long years" implies this relationship has haunted him frequently
• "how should i greet thee? with silence and tears."

  • "silence and tears" is repeated at start; cyclical structure highlights secrecy and sorrow
  • full stop shows "silence and tears" is all he is left with
  • question and answer format highlights speaker's ongoing struggle to come to terms with the aftermath of parting; suggests a sense of emotional paralysis (inability to move forward or find closure)
  • repetition of "silence and tears" also shows the pain is still raw and unresolved and that the speaker remains trapped in the moment of parting
• what are the themes of when we two parted?

  • loss
  • distance
  • death
  • memory
  • emotional paralysis
  • grief
  • love
• state 3 other poems you could compare it to

  • porphyria's lover
  • neutral tones
  • eden rock
• similarities between wwtp and pl

  • in porphyria's lover, browning makes explicit references to death ("strangled her")
  • byron in when we two parted makes more implicit references to death through auditory imagery ("a knell in mine ear")
• differences between wwtp and pl

  • in porphyria's lover, the speaker describe his lover's body in a way which makes her seem alive in metaphor of "laughed the blue eyes without a stain" and "the smiling rosy little head"
  • opposite is true in when we two parted where something living is made to seem physically dead through semantic field of death ("pale grew thy cheek", "i grieve")
• similarities between wwtp and nt

  • both speakers use morbid references to express sadness
  • byron does so through auditory imagery ("a knell to mine ear")
  • hardy uses similar metaphors ("the smile on your mouth was the deadest thing")
  • speaker's sadness further shown through poet's use of phonetics
  • byron uses sibilance in "silence and tears" and hardy uses the same technique in "keen lessons that love deceives"
• differences between wwtp and nt

  • in neutral tones, speaker's dejection is reflected in negative description of surroundings
  • natural imagery usually has positive connotations but it is subverted here in syndetic listing os "your face, and the god curst sun, and a tree"
  • opposingly, in when we two parted, the speaker reflects on his internalised feelings in "in silence i grieve"
• what kind of structure does wwtp have?

  • cyclical; implies speaker's sadness is repetitive and ongoing
• what is the meter of the poem?

  • accentual verse; two stresses per line
  • the two stresses can be seen to represent two separate people
  • accentual verse is very traditional which could reflect the traditional nature of their relationship
• what is the rhyme scheme?

  • ababcdcd; repetitive rhyme scheme shows regularity of speaker's sadness
  • seemingly endless
• what does the semantic field of death show?

  • he describes the relationship as him being in love with something dead
  • shows his lover no longer has love or warmth for speaker; he is dead to her