"Stanzas" by George Gordon, Lord Byron

“Stanzas” by George Gordon, Lord Byron is an interesting poem about fighting for freedom that relates such quests to the olden days of various time periods. The predominant meter is anapestic as illustrated by the following scansion.

1 anapestic tetrameter

2 anapestic trimeter + unaccented last syllable

3 anapestic tetrameter

4 anapestic + unaccented last syllable

5 anapestic tetrameter

6 anapestic trimeter + unaccented last syllable

7 spondee, anapest, anapest, anapest

8 iamb, iamb, iamb, trochee, trochee

The author does an excellent job of tuning the reader’s ear in to the standard rhythm of the first stanza and the first couple lines of the last stanza before shifting to emphasize his meaning. The author starts off by exhorting men to fight for the freedom of others, but his use of the phrase “glories of Greece and of Rome” does not seem particularly apropos. While the Greeks and Romans may have fought for their own freedom, they did not have a habit of fighting for the freedom of others. Instead, this serves to enhance the romantic and glorious mood of the poem. After all, the author wants it to sound enticing to go fight for the freedom of others. The anapestic meter fits the battle cry and glorious nature of the poem with its rolling rhythm. The first two lines of the second stanza continue in the same meter and provide more reasons why the freedom of others should be supported. The last two lines have a sudden change from the “let us” and its accompanying subjunctive mood to the imperative mood. Appropriately, there is a sudden change in meter that seems to put special emphasis on “then battle.” Then the last line has a completely different meter that first shows the catch to the author’s exhortation with iambs and then has confident trochees to emphasize the potential opportunity for being knighted. The lines that end in unaccented last syllables are the lines that end in hard punctuation, so the extra syllables help to soften the pause and make the line trail off.