She Walks in Beauty

Any Good Poem

Richard Berlin, MD, shares the poem "She Walks in Beauty," by Lord George Gordon Byron in honor of Valentine's Day. Lord Byron was 1 of the major figures of the Romantic movement, and is regarded as being among the greatest of British poets.

He was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge before he travelled extensively in Europe. He lived for 7 years in Italy after he was forced to flee England due to threats of lynching. During his stay in Italy, he would frequently visit his friend and fellow poet Percy Bysshe Shelley. Later in life, Byron joined the Greek War of Independence to fight the Ottoman Empire, for which Greeks revere him as a folk hero. He lead a campaign in 1824 but died from a fever at 36 years old.

Dr Berlin has been writing a poem about his experience of being a doctor every month for the past 27 years in Psychiatric Times in a column called “Poetry of the Times.” He is instructor in psychiatry, University of Massachusetts Medical School, Worcester, Massachusetts. His latest book is Tender Fences.