Laurel · Lord Byron · Childe Harold's Pilgrimage

To Inez

Lord Byron (1788–1824) · 1812–1818

iambic tetrameter · ABAB · 36 lines · from Childe Harold's Pilgrimage

Nay, smile not at my sullen brow,Alas! I cannot smile again:Yet Heaven avert that ever thouShouldst weep, and haply weep in vain.

And dost thou ask what secret woeI bear, corroding joy and youth?And wilt thou vainly seek to knowA pang even thou must fail to soothe?

It is not love, it is not hate,Nor low Ambition's honours lost,That bids me loathe my present state,And fly from all I prized the most:

It is that weariness which springsFrom all I meet, or hear, or see:To me no pleasure Beauty brings;Thine eyes have scarce a charm for me.

It is that settled, ceaseless gloomThe fabled Hebrew wanderer bore,That will not look beyond the tomb,But cannot hope for rest before.

What exile from himself can flee?To zones, though more and more remote,Still, still pursues, where'er I be,The blight of life--the demon Thought.

Yet others rapt in pleasure seem,And taste of all that I forsake:Oh! may they still of transport dream,And ne'er, at least like me, awake!

Through many a clime 'tis mine to go,With many a retrospection curst;And all my solace is to know,Whate'er betides, I've known the worst.

What is that worst? Nay, do not ask--In pity from the search forbear:Smile on--nor venture to unmaskMan's heart, and view the hell that's there.

Words in this poem

sullen a.: Lonely; solitary; desolate. Wyclif (Job iii. 14). [OE. solein, solain, lonely, sullen; through Old French fr. (assumed) LL. solanus solitary, fr. L. solus alone. See Sole, a.]
haply adv.: By hap, chance, luck, or accident; perhaps; it may be.
soothe v. t.: To assent to as true. Testament of Love. [Originally, to assent to as true; OE. so to verify, AS. ges to prove the truth of, to bear witness. See Sooth, a.]
scarce a.: Not plentiful or abundant; in small quantity in proportion to the demand; not easily to be procured; rare; uncommon. [OE. scars, OF. escars, eschars, LL. scarpsus, for L. excerptus, p. p. of excerpere to pick out, and hence to contract, to shorten; ex (see Ex-) + carpere. See C]
ceaseless a.: Without pause or end; incessant.
rapt n.: An ecstasy; a trance. Bp. Morton. [From F. rapt abduction, rape, L. raptus, fr. rapere to seize and carry off, to transport; or fr. E. rapt, a. See Rapt, a., and Rapid.]
clime n.: A climate; a tract or region of the earth. See Climate. [L. clima. See Climate.]
retrospection n.: The act, or the faculty, of looking back on things past.
curst a.: Froward; malignant; mischievous; malicious; snarling. [SeeCurse.]
solace n.: Comfort in grief; alleviation of grief or anxiety; also, that which relieves in distress; that which cheers or consoles; relief. [OF. solas, ssoulaz, L. solacium, solatium, fr. solari to comfort, console. Cf. Console, v. t.]
unmask v. t.: To strip of a mask or disguise; to lay open; to expose. [1st pref. un- + mask.]

Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.

About this text

To Inez is in the public domain. This text is taken from Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, Project Gutenberg ebook #5131; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.

Cite as: Lord Byron, To Inez, in Childe Harold's Pilgrimage (1812–1818), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #5131, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/byron-childe-harold/to-inez.html, id L06505.

Form and metre

To Inez is 36 lines in 9 stanzas of 4 lines each. Every stanza rhymes ABAB. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 91%). 95% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 9.6 syllables. 6 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 10% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.

See other poems in iambic tetrameter.

Measured by Laurel's pipeline, not copied from a handbook: how stress and metre are counted, how rhyme is lettered, how a drifted rhyme is found. Where the dictionary cannot confirm a rhyme the letter is withheld, not guessed.

Rhyme words, stanza by stanza

The word that ends each line, lettered by the rhyme it makes; a dash is a line whose rhyme the dictionary could not confirm.

1 ABAB brow^A · again^B · thou^A · vain^B
2 ABAB woe^A · youth^B · know^A · soothe^B
3 ABAB hate^A · lost^B · state^A · most^B
4 ABAB springs^A · see^B · brings^A · me^B
5 ABAB gloom^A · bore^B · tomb^A · before^B
6 ABAB flee^A · remote^B · be^A · thought^B
7 ABAB seem^A · forsake^B · dream^A · awake^B
8 ABAB go^A · curst^B · know^A · worst^B
9 ABAB ask^A · forbear^B · unmask^A · there^B

Scansion, line by line

Each line with its syllable count and the stresses the words themselves fix: / stressed, ˘ unstressed, · a syllable the word leaves free and the metre decides. Read against iambic tetrameter. How this is done.

Line	Syl.	Stress
Nay, smile not at my sullen brow,	8	·····/˘·
Alas! I cannot smile again:	8	˘/·/˘·˘/
Yet Heaven avert that ever thou	8	·/˘/·/˘·
Shouldst weep, and haply weep in vain.	8	···/˘···
And dost thou ask what secret woe	8	·····/˘·
I bear, corroding joy and youth?	8	··˘/˘···
And wilt thou vainly seek to know	8	···/˘···
A pang even thou must fail to soothe?	8	··/·····
It is not love, it is not hate,	8	········
Nor low Ambition's honours lost,	8	··˘/˘/˘·
That bids me loathe my present state,	8	·····/˘·
And fly from all I prized the most:	8	········
It is that weariness which springs	8	···/˘˘··
From all I meet, or hear, or see:	8	········
To me no pleasure Beauty brings;	8	···/˘/˘·
Thine eyes have scarce a charm for me.	8	········
It is that settled, ceaseless gloom	8	···/˘/˘·
The fabled Hebrew wanderer bore,	8	·/˘/˘/˘·
That will not look beyond the tomb,	8	········
But cannot hope for rest before.	8	·/˘·····
What exile from himself can flee?	8	·/··˘/··
To zones, though more and more remote,	8	······˘/
Still, still pursues, where'er I be,	9	··˘/˘˘/··
The blight of life--the demon Thought.	8	·····/˘·
Yet others rapt in pleasure seem,	8	·/˘··/˘·
And taste of all that I forsake:	8	······˘/
Oh! may they still of transport dream,	8	·····˘/·
And ne'er, at least like me, awake!	8	······˘/
Through many a clime 'tis mine to go,	8	·/······
With many a retrospection curst;	8	·/······
And all my solace is to know,	8	···/˘···
Whate'er betides, I've known the worst.	9	˘˘/˘/····
What is that worst? Nay, do not ask--	8	········
In pity from the search forbear:	8	·/˘···˘/
Smile on--nor venture to unmask	8	···/˘·˘/
Man's heart, and view the hell that's there.	8	········

On this poem

"Stanzas to be inserted after stanza 86th in Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, instead of the song at present in manuscript."-[MS. note to "To Inez."] [The stanzas To Inez are dated January 25, 1810, on which day Byron and Hobhouse visited Marathon. Most likely they were addressed to Theresa Macri, the "Maid of Athens," or some favourite of the moment, and not to "Florence" (Mrs. Spencer Smith), whom he had recently (January 16) declared emerita to the tune of "The spell is broke, the charm is flown." A fortnight later (February 10), Hobhouse, accompanied by the Albanian Vasilly and the Athenian Demetrius, set out for the Negroponte. "Lord Byron was unexpectedly detained at Athens" (Travels in Albania, i. 390). (For the stanzas to The Girl of Cadiz, which were suppressed in favour of those To Inez, see Poetical Works, 1891, p. 14, and vol. iii. of the present issue.)]

Notes from the edition 2

E. H. Coleridge's notes to Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, The Works of Lord Byron, Poetry vol. II (John Murray, 1899; Project Gutenberg #25340). Bracketed passages are the editor's; unbracketed are Byron's own (Cantos I-III) or John Cam Hobhouse's (Canto IV, his 'Historical Notes'). Digit footnotes ('[17]') are informational and numbered continuously through the whole book; end-notes keyed '[n.B.]' (Byron) or '[n.H.]' (Hobhouse) follow each canto and are numbered afresh from 1 there. Both kinds are placed here by matching each note's own quoted words against the site's text, not by the number or stanza the note states, because the site's text (Gutenberg #5131) and this edition (#25340) are different editions with different stanza counts in Canto I. Lettered footnotes ('[h]', '[dn]') are manuscript and edition variant readings and are not harvested, matching the treatment of Don Juan's and byron-works-3's lettered notes.

Stanza 6, line 1 [Compare Horace, Odes, II. xvi. 19, 20--

"Patriae quis exsul Se quoque fugit?"]
Stanza 6, line 4 [Compare Prior's Solomon, bk. iii. lines 85, 86--

"In the remotest wood and lonely grot Certain to meet that worst of evils--thought."]

The reader shows the same poem with its rhymes coloured and a stress row above each line, the notes beside their stanzas, and any word's definition on a tap; the analysis page takes the whole book apart. How every part of this site was made.

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