Lord Byron: Stanzas for Music

[Tori]

We've been discussing it slightly in class, and I wanted to hear your views on it and how you'd interpret it... Yes, I admit it, I'm having trouble analyzing it :brickwall

"Stanzas for Music" by Lord Byron

There be none of Beauty's daughters
With a magic like thee;
And like music on the waters
Is thy sweet voice to me:
When, as if its sound were causing
The charmed ocean's pausing,
The waves lie still and gleaming,
And the lulled winds seem dreaming;

And the midnight moon is weaving
Her bright chain o'er the deep,
Whose breast is gently heaving
As an infant's asleep:
So the spirit bows before thee,
To listen and adore thee,
With a full but soft emotion,
Like the swell of Summer's ocean.

[mono]

I love this particular work. Thank you for sharing it, Tori; and worry not, Byron never seems easy to interpret, I agree. I feel that Byron relates all sounds with the euphonious tones of nature and the breathing of whomever he briefly mentions: his muse, we could assume. In relating the muse's voice and breathing with nature (ocean waves and wind), her voice and breathing come to him as natural as all else - sounds that have a necessary existence and that seem easy to adore. And from that, he derives pleasure and emotion: "To listen and adore thee, / With a full but soft emotion."
Thank you again for sharing, Tori. Good luck!