Compare and contrast Browning's "My Last Duchess" and Byron's "The Destruction of Sennacherib."

Except for imagery and rhyming couplets, there is more to
contrast between these two poems than there is to compare. A few points to consider are
these. In Browning's "My Last Duchess," he makes significant use of enjambment while
Byron's "The Destruction of Sennacherib" employs stops at the end of each line.
Enjambment is a technique that causes the thought begun in
one line to carry over to the following line. This adds to a speedy pace of reading; to
tension; to suspense; and to the complexity of the
thought:

How
such a glance came there; so not the first
Are you to turn and ask thus. Sir,
't was not
Her husband's presence
only

Line-end
stops may be commas, semicolons, colons, or periods. Lines with end stops
give a more measured pace to the poem, thus creating emphasis, which can heighten
tranquility ("When the blue wave rolls nightly on deep Galilee. / ... / Like the leaves
of the forest when Summer is green,") or drama and
intensity:

For
the Angel of Death spread his wings on the blast,
And breathed in the face of
the foe as he passed;
And the eyes of the sleepers waxed deadly and
chill,

Browning uses
rhyming couplets, with no stanza breaks, starting with
aabbccdd and continuing through the sequence to the end couplet of "rareity" / "for me."
Byron similarly uses rhyming couplets but with stanzas in quatrains with aabb ccdd
through to the end couplet of "sword" / "Lord." Byron relies heavily upon Biblical and
ancient allusion: Ashur, Angel of Death, Assyrian, etc.,
whereas Browning relies heavily upon imagery: "for never
read / Strangers like you that pictured countenance," etc. Byron also relies heavily
upon imagery: "sheen of their spears was like stars on the sea,"
etc.

Byron, recounts in third person point of
view the legend of an ancient battle when the King of Assyria,
Sennaccherib, came in force against the Hebrew city of Judah. The Biblical text of the
chronicles of Second Kings, in the 18th and 19th chapters, tells that the Assyrians,
whose gods were Ashur and Baal and whose holy city was also called Ashur, were conquered
by Jehovah's might without any warfare:

readability="13">

Now in the fourteenth year of king Hezekiah did
Sennacherib king of Assyria come up against all the fenced cities of Judah, and took
them. 2 Kings 18:13
Therefore thus saith the LORD concerning the king of
Assyria, He shall not come into this city, nor shoot an arrow there, nor come before it
with shield, nor cast a bank against it. 2 Kings
19:32

Browning tells a
narrative as a first person dramatic monologue about the
strange life and sudden death of a Duke's previous (last) Duchess. The story is told on
the verge of his meeting his next Duchess pending the finalization of the wedding
agreements:

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... ample warrant that no just pretence
[50]
Of mine for dowry will be
disallowed;

In this
psychological poem, the Duke is speaking with his bride's
father's representative ("I repeat, / The Count your master's known munificence") while
showing him the portrait of his "last Duchess": "That's my last duchess painted on the
wall, ...." The nature of the two poems is similar in the use of rhyming couplets and
imagery, but different on subject matter, point of view, narrative style, and much
poetic technique.