DESERT ISLAND POEM 5

SO WE'LL GO NO MORE A ROVING

by George Gordon, Lord Byron

Byron is renowned for his extravagant lifestyle and it seems at this point in his young life he realised his body could not keep up with his desires and excesses.

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If you know nothing of Byron then it will be difficult to believe this was written by someone in their twenties. The words and sentiments conveyed are far more in keeping with a much older person.

In terms of scansion, there are three stressed beats per line but note how the rhyme moves from feminine to masculine in the second stanza on lines one and three, and then the caesura and only two stressed beats on the closing line of the third.

Some might interpret a metric switch to a stressed opening beat on the closing line but I don't believe this to be the case because such is the rhythm of the unstressed openings to each line prior, they fall in time with the silent stress thus making the rhyme words fall on the third beat throughout.

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Either way, it is a troublesome lament and in many ways its construction is reflective of the poet's tragically short life.

So, we'll go no more a-roving
      So late into the night,
Though the heart be still as loving,
      And the moon be still as bright.

For the sword outwears its sheath,
      And the soul wears out the breast,
And the heart must pause to breathe,
      And love itself have rest.

Though the night was made for loving,
      And the day returns too soon,
Yet we'll go no more a-roving
      By the light of the moon.

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