Looking back on Written after Swimming from Sestos to Abydos

The comic tone and elements of "Written after Swimming from Sestos to Abydos" became much more pronounced to me after reading the Dedication to "Don Juan." The first thing I noticed was rhyme of "plague you" with" ague", which was pointed out in class by Professor Oerlemans but which I understood much better after reading the Dedication. Immediately the Dedication makes use of this in lines 1 and three, rhyming "laureate" with "Tory at," and continues to employ very pronounced rhyme to comedic effect. The entirety of the Dedication was to me reminiscent of the nursery rhyme 'Sing a song of Six-pence" referenced throughout with lines about "four and twenty blackbirds in a pye." Taking this understanding and returning to read "Written after Swimming from Sestos to Abydos" once again, I saw more of a comic tone than before. While not as comic as the Dedication, The line "To woo, -and-lord knows what beside" especially fit better in my new understanding of the poem, which had been influenced by reading lines like "Fair Venus! How I pity both!" and "Sad mortals! Thus the Gods still plague you!" as more sincere than was probably appropriate. The Dedication and Don Juan as a whole gave me a better sense of Byron, helping me learn how to read him as compared to the other poets, and as a result I think i developed a better sense of the works we read for Tuesday.