She walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that’s best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes.

The speaker opens with these four lines (lines 1–4), in which he explores the first major theme of the poem: beauty as an expression of delicate balance. The speaker introduces this theme through a simile that likens the beauty of a certain woman to a cloudless and starlit sky. The image of the starry sky expresses something important about the speaker’s philosophy of beauty. A cloudy sky at night blocks out the starlight and thus throws the world into darkness—a darkness made even more profound if the moon isn’t out. By contrast, when the clouds recede to reveal a blanket of stars, the subtle twinkling of starlight brings just enough illumination to offset the sky’s darkness. What results is a balance between shadow and light, the delicacy of which contributes to its beauty. Just as the sky unites darkness and starlight into a harmonious relationship, so too does the woman’s face unite “all that’s best of dark and bright.” In other words, the gleam in her eyes delicately offsets the darker features of her face, or “aspect,” establishing a beautiful harmony.

                     . . . the nameless grace
Which waves in every raven tress,
Of softly lightens o’er her face;
Where thoughts serenely sweet express,
How pure, how dear their dwelling-place.

With these lines (lines 8–12), which come from the poem’s middle stanza, the speaker turns his thoughts from the aesthetic principles of beauty to the relationship between beauty and virtue. The second stanza begins with a continuation of the thought that occupies the speaker in the first stanza. That is, the speaker continues to think about the delicate balance between shadow and light that constitutes the woman’s beauty. Here, the speaker refers to the woman’s beauty as “the nameless grace” that emerges from how her raven-black locks frame her light-skinned face. Once again, the speaker offers an image featuring the harmonious balance of opposites. In this case, however, the speaker abandons his focus on harmony mid-thought. He then shifts his attention from the contrast provided by the woman’s “every raven tress” and focuses instead on what her black hair frames—that is, her face. Her face is the place where she expresses her thoughts. Grammatically speaking, it isn’t clear whether the phrase “serenely sweet” refers to her facial expressions or to the thoughts those expressions communicate. This ambiguity is significant, however, since it leads the speaker to think that the woman’s physical beauty must be an exterior manifestation of her interior virtue.

The smiles that win, the tints that glow,
But tell of days in goodness spent,
A mind at peace with all below,
A heart whose love is innocent!

The speaker brings the poem to a close with these lines (lines 15–18), where he develops the thought that external beauty is linked to internal virtue. Whereas he first expressed this thought in a very dense and complicated way at the end of the second stanza, here he uses simpler syntax and a more straightforward example. Specifically, the speaker suggests that “the smiles that win” on the woman’s cheeks, along with “the tints that glow” on her brow, must be interpreted as exterior manifestations of the woman’s interior essence. And given that the exterior manifestations are so lovely, her interior essence must be equally admirable. It is for this reason that the speaker interprets the woman’s beauty as a sign of virtuous characteristics like goodness, peace, and innocence. It’s also worth noting that the ends with a celebratory speculation about the woman’s capacity for innocent love. Although the poem began with the speaker remarking on the woman’s physical attractiveness, his appreciation of this woman clearly deepens with the recognition of her virtuous heart.

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