So We'll Go No More A-Roving

Here is a short poem by George Gordon, Lord Byron:

So We'll Go No More A-Roving

1
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.

2
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.

3
Though the night was made for loving,
And the day returns too soon,
Yet we'll go nor more a-roving
By the light of the moon.

(The even-numbered lines are supposed to be indented, but for some reason the blog-machinery doesn't go along with that, try as I might. And the numbers are supposed to be centered over the stanzas.)

A footnote in The Norton Anthology of English Literature (Volume 2), Fifth Edition, p. 512, reports, "Composed in the Lenten aftermath of a spell of feverish dissipation in the Carnival season in Venice, and included in a letter to Thomas Moore, Feb. 28, 1817. Byron wrote, 'I find "the sword wearing out the scabbard," though I have but just turned the corner of twenty-nine.' The poem is based on the refrain of a Scottish song, The Jolly Beggar, 'And we'll gang nae mair a roving/Sae late into the nicht...."

To rove, as Byron is using the word, is literally to wander and figuratively to wander around "partying," of course. The noun "rove," incidentally, refers either to a scab or a piece of metal, but I've never heard or seen "rove" used in this way.

It's interesting that Byron claims to be withdrawing from the party-life and the life of amorous roving not because Lent has arrived but because he is weary. He also seems to think that age 29 is a bit too early to be weary of partying. Some people never cease to go a-roving (and that construction is fascinating: adding "a" to "roving"): Keith Richard, for example, or my distant older cousin, Erik, who was literally the town drunk of my small town. Into his 70s, he drank and "roved" almost every day of his life; of course, alcoholic roving is not a pretty sight.

The third line of the poem has always tended to throw me off, even after innumerable readings. My mind wants to read it as "Though the heart be still" as in "be still my heart"--that is, "Thought heart be quiet," but then of course the line wants to convey the following: "Though the heart is still (or "nonetheless") capable of loving." It's not a flaw; it's part of the poem's charm now, like a favorite little nick in an antique desk.

"[t]he heart must pause to breathe": I like the plain factuality of that, and I like the way the poem at this point recognizes the heart as a biological or anatomical entity, not just the symbol or locus of love. "And Love itself [must] have rest." That's good, too--Love, a force unto itself, requires periods of rest, regardless of which human is experiencing that force.

The last stanza is "counter-carpe-diem." That is, even though humans (especially those under the age of 30) were made to go a-roving, and even though time passes very quickly (hence the advice to "seize the day"), there are limits. We get tired. Even, apparently, at age 29. So carpe the diem all you want, but you're going to have to take a break.

In 1981 I traveled to Venice, from Germany, via Austria, and happened to get there just as Carnivale was starting: fortuitous. Out of that experience came, eventually, a poem, first published in The Washington English Journal, I think, in 1985 (?). My roving wasn't up to Byronic standards, by any means, but I had a good time. Here's the poem:

Venice, Carnivale

Who will you be in Venice
beneath the year’s third moon
when crowds of Carnivale
pour toward you all in greasepaint,
all in masks and capes? Who will
you be in this humanity and alleys
floating on moonlight and sewage?

Laughter from a canal-taxi
skips across painted water,
ricochets off rotting brick.
Your personality hangs like a rusted
iron shutter. Be anyone but yourself
and John Ruskin, Carnivale advises.
Be sewage, puke in the canal, beg,
sleep with cats, eat rats. Be

moonlight, fall in love, swell
like Caruso’s voice. A Danish woman
winks at you from across a restaurant.
An Italian boy lights a firecracker; therefore,
pigeons scuttling your tourist’s boredom
panic and swoop up through your heart.

Be Italian. Close your window
to riotous streets. Return to your tidy
apartment, your statuette of Mary, and
a proper life of grief, lace, and spices. Be

American: gawk and gaudy jazz architecture
of San Marco; order beer and puzzle
at this sinking city (why don’t they fix it?). Be
European, wear that history for an evening.
Work hard at language, gesture, shout, pose,
Strut. Forget your Kansas, blond in corn heat.
Forget about flat American English that naps
on your tongue, then saunters toward a barn.

Be the crowd, be the anonymous mime’s face,
talk another’s conversation, kiss another’s other,
tilt your head back and laugh a lunatic’s
hysteria to Carnivale moon.

from The Coast Starlight: Collected Poems 1976-2006