On Parting
The kiss, dear maid! thy lip has leftShall never part from mine,Till happier hours restore the giftUntainted back to thine.
Thy parting glance, which fondly beams,An equal love may see:oThe tear that from thine eyelid streamsCan weep no change in me.
I ask no pledge to make me blestIn gazing when alone;pNor one memorial for a breast,Whose thoughts are all thine own.
Nor need I write--to tell the taleMy pen were doubly weak:Oh! what can idle words avail,qUnless the heart could speak?
By day or night, in weal or woe,That heart, no longer free,Must bear the love it cannot show,And silent ache for thee.
Words in this poem
- shall v. i.
- To owe; to be under obligation for. [OE. shal, schal, imp. sholde, scholde, AS. scal, sceal, I am obliged, imp. scolde, sceolde, inf. sculan; akin to OS. skulan, pres. skal, imp. skolda, D. zullen,]
- fondly adv.
- Foolishly. Verstegan (1673).
- ache n.
- A name given to several species of plants; as, smallage, wild celery, parsley. Holland. [F. ache, L. apium parsley.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
On Parting is in the public domain. This text is taken from The Works of Lord Byron. Vol. 3, Project Gutenberg ebook #21811; 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, On Parting, in The Giaour, and Other Poems (1816), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #21811, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/byron-works-3/on-parting.html, id L23837.
Form and metre
On Parting is 20 lines in 5 stanzas of 4 lines each. The metre is common measure, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 94%).
See other poems in common measure.
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 -A-A left · mineA · gift · thineA
- 2 A-A- beamsA · see:o · streamsA · me
- 3 A-A- blestA · alone;p · breastA · own
- 4 -A-A tale · weakA · avail,q · speakA
- 5 ABAB woeA · freeB · showA · theeB
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 common measure. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| The kiss, dear maid! thy lip has left | 8 | ········ |
| Shall never part from mine, | 6 | ·/˘··· |
| Till happier hours restore the gift | 8 | ·/˘/˘/·· |
| Untainted back to thine. | 6 | ˘/˘··· |
| Thy parting glance, which fondly beams, | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| An equal love may see:o | 7 | ·/˘···· |
| The tear that from thine eyelid streams | 8 | ·····/·· |
| Can weep no change in me. | 6 | ······ |
| I ask no pledge to make me blest | 8 | ········ |
| In gazing when alone;p | 7 | ·/˘·˘/· |
| Nor one memorial for a breast, | 8 | ··˘/˘··· |
| Whose thoughts are all thine own. | 6 | ······ |
| Nor need I write--to tell the tale | 8 | ········ |
| My pen were doubly weak: | 6 | ···/˘· |
| Oh! what can idle words avail,q | 9 | ···/˘·˘/· |
| Unless the heart could speak? | 6 | ······ |
| By day or night, in weal or woe, | 8 | ········ |
| That heart, no longer free, | 6 | ···/˘· |
| Must bear the love it cannot show, | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| And silent ache for thee. | 6 | ·/˘··· |
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.