She Walks in Beauty

Lord George Gordon Byron wrote “She Walks in Beauty” in 1814, during the English Romantic period. The poem, which was published in 1815 as part of a collection entitled Hebrew Melodies, praises the magnificent beauty of an unnamed woman. Byron compares her to a clear starry night and fixates on the harmonious contrast of darkness and light in her appearance. The poem concludes by making assumptions about the woman’s inner morality based on her outer attractiveness, asserting that her beauty “tell[s] of days in goodness spent.”