George Gordon Byron is also known as Lord Byron was a Scottish poet and a very much leading figure in Romantic Movement. His works are still very much influenced and read and is considered as one among the greatest British poets. Even though he is known as Lord Bryon, to get to this name, he had to keep changing his names several times.
Byron was born with a deformity on his right foot, which is generally referred to as club foot. This caused him a life long psychological and physical misery, irritated by repeated pains and pointless treatments.
Bryon was very much conscious about his deformity and he wore special made shoes to hide this. Gradually he developed the art the walking in a special manner where people could not recognize his default at a glance. His writing interest developed when he was young and he had his first publication when he was fourteen.
I speak not is a poem, where Byron has depicted different feelings in life, but mostly of love. He was in deeply love with one of his distant cousin at the age of eight. But then it was a silent love and over the period of years, after she left, he then hears about her marriage which left lot of grief within him.
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This poem depicts a feel of passionate love and the pain of loosing it. He has tried to write this poem from his own life experience. He starts the poem by saying that he does not speak, nor trace nor breathe her name. He feels grief in the sound of her name and guilt for the fame that he acquired. He cries, thinking of the past and the pain that dwells in his heart cannot be heard by any or felt by any. The time between them was less, the passion was not expressed and when departed, it was too long a distance among them. Could all those years be bought back and how could we make it up for the lost days. Will we be able to unite again; in spite of the distance between us is what he wishes to happen.
He then says that, she might be glad now, but he is at guilt. He seeks forgiveness in all respects and wishes that they unite together once again. Even if she does not forgive him, his heart dies for her and no matter what anyone tries to say, he is strong in his love and humble with the affection for her. Even in the blackness, his soul would be there for her, which means that even after death, he would love her.
Lastly he describes his love after death, where they unite together and as days by, the memories get sweeter and with she beside him , he feels like the ruler to the world and he feels powerful, than the world under his feet. With one sigh of her sorrow, or with one look of her love, would just make him happy beyond bounds and shall turn him to a fix. And when the world asks him for quitting, her lips shall rest on his, rather than answering them.
This is a beautiful poem that expresses his feelings for love and the desire to get back his first love in life.