So We’ll Go No More A-Roving
By-Lord Byron
George Gordon or as he is more famously known” Lord Byron”, is the author of the poetry “So we’ll go no more a-roving”. It was during the famous Carnivale of Venice, that Byron wrote this charming poem. During this festival ,people roamed the streets in masks and partied for four days.
The first line of the poem “So we’ll go no more a-roving” makes it seem unlikely that he was alone. Does it mean him and a woman or him and a friend? This first line itself capture the attention of the reader.It makes the reader wonder, as to why he can go roving no more?Is the poet sad? Or is he too old or ill?Whom is the poet talking to?
He then goes onto saying even though the heart maybe willing the body can not go on.This sentence only reaffirms the first. We the readers are now intrigued.
However we see that Lord Byron was only in his late twenties when he wrote this poem. At the age of twenty-nine he wrote a letter to his friend Moore in which he included the poem. He wrote “Though I did not dissipate overmuch… yet I find the sword wearing out the scabbard, though I have but just turned the corner of twenty-nine.” Here we see that Byron is refering to himself and his inability to party and enjoy life any more.He feels that he has not over indulged , yet he feels that his body is giving up on him ,although he is still at such a young , raw age.
Looking back to the first line of the poem, by “we”, does Lord Byron mean he and Moore? The weeks of dissipation he mentions are the days of fun and frolic that occurred during the days of the Venetian carnival.
The second stanza begins with the line “For the sword outwears its sheath.” He mentions this also in his letter to Moore. By sword, Byron means the soul, and by sheath, he means the body. Lord Byron is not at all old – he has just lived his life so wildly, so energetically, that he is already worn out. In fact, he died at the...