Hello everybody and welcome to today’s video: four key things about the Lord Byron poem ‘When We Two Parted’, a poem that explores how separation from a loved one leads to unending suffering. This was once a positive relationship, reflected through the early adoption of a Shakespearean sonnet rhyme scheme: ABAB CDCD EFEF. The sonnet is a romantic form, traditionally associated with love and harmony, and the initial mirroring of this rhyme scheme suggests that the relationship was once a loving one. However, there is a significant shift from the expected rhyme pattern. Instead of following the traditional sonnet form, where we would expect a GG rhyme at the end, the poem shifts to a GH rhyme. This break comes at the line ‘thy vows are all broken,’ which is the moment the speaker is overwhelmed by the reality of separation and absence. This deviation mirrors the speaker’s emotional collapse. The structure of the poem further reflects the speaker’s suffering at their separation from the loved one. The poem’s use of accentual verse, where each line has the same number of stressed syllables no matter what the overall syllable count, is initially regular. However, this pattern is disrupted in lines 5 and 7, just as the speaker realises that his lover no longer cares for him. This break in structure mirrors the emotional shock of rejection, with the irregularity symbolising the speaker’s internal conflict and inability to maintain emotional stability. Byron intensifies the speaker’s suffering through the use of death-related imagery, suggesting that the end of the relationship feels like the death of love itself. The phrase ‘knell in mine ear’ refers to the tolling of a funeral bell, a symbol of death. Here, Byron’s speaker is not just mourning the end of the relationship, but treating the separation as the death of something. The love they once shared is metaphorically dead, and the speaker grieves as though he is at a funeral, reflecting the sense of loss and highlighting the devastation that follows the absence. The cyclical structure of the poem reinforces the inescapable nature of the speaker’s grief, suggesting that the absence of a loved one leads not to closure but to an endless loop of suffering. The repetition of the final line, ‘with silence and tears,’ echoes the poem’s opening, reflecting the speaker’s inability to break free from their pain. Rather than moving forward, the speaker is trapped in a cycle of pain, unable to escape. The cyclical structure of the poem reflects how deeply the separation has affected the speaker, leaving him without hope, and reinforcing the poem’s overall message of the suffering that comes from the end of a relationship and the absence of a loved one.