Poem Analysis

The Tear by Lord Byron

When Friendship or Love
Our sympathies move;
When Truth, in a glance, should appear,
The lips may beguile,
With a dimple or smile,
But the test of affection's a Tear:

Too oft is a smile
But the hypocrite's wile,
To mask detestation, or fear;
Give me the soft sigh,
Whilst the soultelling eye
Is dimm'd, for a time, with a Tear:

Mild Charity's glow,
To us mortals below,
Shows the soul from barbarity clear;
Compassion will melt,
Where this virtue is felt,
And its dew is diffused in a Tear:

The man, doom'd to sail
With the blast of the gale,
Through billows Atlantic to steer,
As he bends o'er the wave
Which may soon be his grave,
The green sparkles bright with a Tear;

The Soldier braves death
For a fanciful wreath
In Glory's romantic career;
But he raises the foe
When in battle laid low,
And bathes every wound with a Tear.

If, with high-bounding pride,
He return to his bride!
Renouncing the gore-crimson'd spear;
All his toils are repaid
When, embracing the maid,
From her eyelid he kisses the Tear.

Sweet scene of my youth!
Seat of Friendship and Truth,
Where Love chas'd each fast-fleeting year
Loth to leave thee, I mourn'd,
For a last look I turn'd,
But thy spire was scarce seen through a Tear:

Though my vows I can pour,
To my Mary no more,
My Mary, to Love once so dear,
In the shade of her bow'r,
I remember the hour,
She rewarded those vows with a Tear.

By another possest,
May she live ever blest!
Her name still my heart must revere:
With a sigh I resign,
What I once thought was mine,
And forgive her deceit with a Tear.

Ye friends of my heart,
Ere from you I depart,
This hope to my breast is most near:
If again we shall meet,
In this rural retreat,
May we meet, as we part, with a Tear.

When my soul wings her flight
To the regions of night,
And my corse shall recline on its bier;
As ye pass by the tomb,
Where my ashes consume,
Oh! moisten their dust with a Tear.

When reading this poem I came across a few words I think we should know. Beguile means to charm or divert. A deceit is to mislead or cheat.  And a bier is a stand for a coffin.  This poem is literally about a man who goes off to war and comes back to find his wife has cheated on him with his friend.  He forgives them and hopes that when he dies they will remember him lovingly.  The title is important because a tear is a sign of the many different emotions people have.  The author uses imagery with all the places a tear is present.  It is easy to imagine a bride crying at her wedding, an injured soldier at war, or friends crying at a funeral.  He also uses personification by saying "Glory's career..." This creates layers of meaning.  The author uses rhyme with words like youth, truth and pride, bride.  The rhyme scheme is a, a, b, c, c, b and the form is eleven six line stanzas.  The speaker of the poem could be the poet because the poet and the speaker are both male.  The shift occurs in the ninth stanza when the speaker says "by another possest..." at this point the speaker accepts the betrayal.  The tone of this poem is a betrayed calmness.  The speaker is very sad, but he has come to peace with what happened to him.  I interpreted the theme as it is not what happens to you but how you choose to repond which determines the outcome. I cam to this conclusion because the speaker has had a very bad thing happen to him.  He could easily be angry and hate, but he chooses to forgive, making him a happier person.