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OBSERVATIONS ABOUT POETRY

“A poem begins in delight and ends in wisdom." - Robert Frost

".. .the best words in the best order." - Samuel Taylor Coleridge

"Poetry is the most direct and simple means of expressing oneself in word." - Northrup Frye

"Poetry is like making a joke. If you get one word wrong at the end of a joke, you've lost the whole thing." - William Stanley Merwin

"Poetry is as precise a thing as geometry." - Gustave Flaubert

"Poetry is the silent voice that is heard everywhere inside of us..." - Unknown

"If I read a book and it makes my whole body so cold no fire can ever warm me, I know it is poetry. If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know this is poetry. These are the only ways I know it. Is there any other way?"- Emily Dickinson

"Poetry is like shot silk with many glowing colours, and every reader must find his own interpretation according to his ability, and according to his sympathy with the poet." - Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Poetic Definitions of Poetry

A PoemRoger Bates Kronmann

A poem is a portrait sketched in words.It is a synonym for soul, a sermonFrom the stars. It is a song of mockingbirdsWho mimic men; the fragrance of a forgottenRose. It is the grammar of the soulAnd the language of the heart. It is a dreamthat comes to those who are awake; a strollUpon the boulevard of time; a schemeTo conquer death. It is the romance of FranceIn a triolet or it is the power of RomeIn a sonnet. It is a waltz for words, a danceOf the pen to the time of a mental metronome.A poem is a mental prayer and a breathFrom the soul which says that life Is more than death.

Exercise - Circle the word that you think best applies: This poet thinks that poems are:

beautiful powerful spiritual emotional

Explain your selection.

POETRY – CREATIVE WRITING 1

THE ROLE OF THE POETPoets:

1. select, combine, and reorganize their own significant felt, observed, or imagined experiences2. create significant new experiences for their readers3. significant because readers may participate in the experience and gain a greater awareness and understanding

of their own world4. step up the intensity of our significant experiences5. help us to clarify our own significant experience

METAPHOR

A metaphor is a figure of speech that implies a comparison between two essentially unlike things. This implied comparison can pack a great deal of meaning into a few words.

{ } - The lion’s roar spread across the still twilight like the beating of thunder from the high mountain.

{ } - states that one thing is another.

A strong mind is the curved bow that frees the surest arrows.

Your example:

{ } implies a comparison between multiple things.

Against her black formal gown, she wore a constellation of diamonds.

The hunter fired as the lion’s tawny hide sprouted crimson roses.

Your example:


{POETRY} - a kind of language that says more and says it more intensely than does ordinary language

Manhole CoversKarl ShapiroThe beauty of manhole covers--what of that?Like medals struck by a great savage khan,Like Mayan calendar stones, unliftable, indecipherable,Not like the old electrum, chased and scored,Mottoed and sculptured to a turn,But notched and whelked and pocked and smashedWith the great company names(Gentle Bethlehem, smiling United States).This rustproof artifact of my street,Long after roads are melted away will lieSidewise in the grave of the iron-old world,Bitten at the edges,Strong with its cryptic American,Its dated beauty.

Create two metaphor poems, 8-10 lines each, a single stanza, one for an Object and one for a Fruit or AnimalExamples below.

Object Poem

Conch-shellJim Kristofic

The conch-shell is a sculpted receiver, Luminescent pink within, Diseased white along its rocky skin, Now set along the sands of tides unremembered.Hollow as an eardrum, silent as a fist: Womb for imagination, labyrinth for the small, And a prize for the fat-of-hand. A children’s pleasure, an adult’s treasure. A pregnant, pink tunnel coiled in calcified sea-foam, Until taken up in anger, and then is but a stone.


Fruit or Animal Poem

Lemon Jim Kristofic

A yellow fist, Palmed tight and puckered at each end. Transparent sheets between pale flesh. Sit still, shine in pale porcelain bowls, In the hard, green boughs; reflect silver under the moon’s flirting eyes. Remind me of good manners. Acid on my tongue. Bite me.

METAPHOR EMULATION POEM

We sit at the kitchen tableWaiting for some opening. For the proper handling of goodbye. Going deeper and deeper into the hours, like…

ADD SEVEN LINES AND CONTINUE THE METAPHOR.

EXAMPLE:

We sit at the kitchen tableWaiting for some opening. For the proper handling of goodbye. Going deeper and deeper into the hours, like roots pushing silent and blind through the under earth, through the car payments, the cigarettes on the coffee table, the stacked magazines in the corner. We grow deep, but cannot find water; Best to die slow and feign a dry sleep.


Rhythm: Identifying Stressed and Unstressed Syllables

Divide each of the following words and phrases into syllables, and mark each syllable as either stressed(/) or unstressed(U). Use a dictionary if you need help.

Examples: U / / U U U / /advice ad vice │ yesterday yes ter day │ on the bus on the bus

Scanning a Poem

The process used in analyzing a poem's rhythm is called scansion or scanning the poem. A scansion includes several specific steps:

Some Warnings for Scanners

1. Don't force syllables to fit a pattern. Indicate natural stresses and unstresses.

2. Look for a dominant pattern, but don't expect every syllable to fit.

3. Don't be surprised that some syllables can be either stressed or unstressed, depending on the inclination of the reader.

4. Don't equate degree of rhythmical regularity with level of merit of the poem.

Step 1: Mark each syllable as either stressed or unstressed. U / U / U / U /

Because │ I could │ not stop │ for death U / U / U /

He kind │ ly stopped │ for me

Step 2: Look for a dominant pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables. This regular pattern is called meter. When analyzing rhythm, we refer to basic metrical units called feet.

U / iamb iambic foot con-trol, to-day / U trochee trochaic foot par-ty, dai-ly U U / anapest anapestic foot in-ter-rupt, in-ter-vene / U U dactyl dactylic foot el-e-phant, yes-ter-day // spondee spondaic foot sun-rise, day-break

If there is a pattern, use a line to separate individual feet.

U / U / U / U / Because │ I could │ not stop │ for death

U / U / U / He kind │ ly stopped │ for me.

Step 3: Describe the rhythm. If the poem has meter, first identify the dominant foot and then the number of feet per line.


1 foot = monometer 3 feet = trimester 5 feet = pentameter

2 feet = dimeter 4 feet = tetrameter 6 feet = hexameter

Try using the three steps to analyze the rhythm of these two lines:

And when the war is done and youth stone dead,

I'd toddle safely home and die—in bed.

ALLITERATION, ASSONANCE, and RHYME

Three popular poetic sound devices are alliteration, assonance, and rhyme. Read the definitions, study the examples, and create some original phrases.

Alliteration is the repetition of similar consonant sounds, often at the beginnings of words.

Examples: Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers.

Assonance is the repetition of similar vowel sounds.

Examples: The avid fan of the Astros was camped in the canopied grandstand.

Poetry Terms:

Couplet: two successive lines, usually in the same meter, linked by rhymeDiction: the words of a poem; in particular, the selection of words the poet employsQuatrain: a four-line stanza; a four-line division of a sonnet marked by its rhyme schemeRefrain: a repeated line or stanzaSpeaker: the narrator or voice of the poem as well as the point of view from which the theme comesStanza: a group of lines of verse (usually four or more) arranged according to a fixed patternTercet: stanza of three lines, usually iambic and usually employing a single rhyme soundTheme: the central thought, message or ideaTone: the feeling conveyed by a writer's attitude toward the subject and revealed through writing style and choice of words Verse paragraph: metrical language in a paragraph form but the opposite of prose


{NARRATIVE POEM}- a poem that tells a story

Examples: 1.

2.

The Destruction of Sennacharib { }George Gordon, Lord Byron*in the 1.5 spaced stanza, scansion for the rhythm and rhyme*

The Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold, And his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold; And the sheen of their spears was like stars on the sea, When the blue wave rolls nightly on deep Galilee.

Like the leaves of the forest when Summer is green, That host with their banners at sunset were seen: Like the leaves of the forest when Autumn hath blown, That host on the morrow lay withered and strown.

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, And their hearts but once heaved, and for ever grew still!

And there lay the steed with his nostril all wide, But through it there rolled not the breath of his pride; And the foam of his gasping lay white on the turf, And cold as the spray of the rock-beating surf.

*And there lay the rider distorted and pale,

With the dew on his brow, and the rust on his mail:

And the tents were all silent, the banners alone,

The lances unlifted, the trumpet unblown.*

And the widows of Ashur are loud in their wail, And the idols are broke in the temple of Baal; And the might of the Gentile, unsmote by the sword, Hath melted like snow in the glance of the Lord!


Eldorado { }Edgar Allan Poe*in the 1.5 spaced stanza, scansion for the rhythm and rhyme*

*Gaily bedight,

A gallant night

In sunshine and in shadow,

Had journeyed long,

Singing a song,

In search of El Dorado.*

But he grew old --This knight so bold --And -- o'er his heart a shadowFell as he foundNo spot of groundThat looked like El Dorado.

And, as his strengthFailed him at length,He met a pilgrim shadow --"Shadow," said he,"Where can it be --This land of El Dorado?"

"Over the MountainsOf the Moon,Down the Valley of the Shadow,Ride, boldly ride,"The shade replied --"If you seek for El Dorado."


{LYRICAL POEM} –a poem that observes and expresses the feelings of a single speaker. Unlike a narrative poem, it presents an experience or a single effect, but it does not tell a full story.

A Blessing { }James Wright Just off the highway to Rochester, Minnesota,Twilight bounds softly forth on the grass.And the eyes of those two Indian poniesDarken with kindness.They have come gladly out of the willowsTo welcome my friend and me.We step over the barbed wire into the pastureWhere they have been grazing all day, alone.They ripple tensely, they can hardly contain their happinessThat we have come.They bow shyly as wet swans. They love each other.There is no loneliness like theirs.At home once more, they begin munching the young tufts of spring in the darkness.I would like to hold the slenderer one in my arms,For she has walked over to meAnd nuzzled my left hand.She is black and white,Her mane falls wild on her forehead,And the light breeze moves me to caress her long earThat is delicate as the skin over a girl's wrist.Suddenly I realizeThat if I stepped out of my body I would breakInto blossom.

Winter Trees { }William Carlos Williams

All the complicated detailsof the attiring andthe disattiring are completed!A liquid moonmoves gently amongthe long branches.Thus having prepared their budsagainst a sure winterthe wise treesstand sleeping in the cold.


EMULATION POEM

Disillusionment of Ten O’ Clock { }Wallace Stevens

The houses are hauntedBy white night-gowns.None are green,Or purple with green rings,Or green with yellow rings,Or yellow with blue rings.None of them are strange,With socks of laceAnd beaded ceintures.People are not goingTo dream of baboons and periwinkles.Only, here and there, an old sailor,Drunk and asleep in his boots,Catches tigersIn red weather.

EXAMPLE

Ten O’Clock Disillusionment Poem Jim Kristofic

The dorms are filled With loud college talk. Many words of many meetings, People meeting others, Getting away for the weekend, Seeing God in a church basement. Or in a worship serviceTo hear God speak. None are going to hear the silence of a canyon; They are not going to walk through an unnamed desert, And leave their trees and creeks behind them. None will sleep and dream of sheep herds under scant cottonwoods And nights with no streetlights to allow them To forget the dark. Only, in one room or another, A transfer student, asleep in his clothes,Runs down horses


Beneath the mesas.

IMAGERY

Poets use effective imagery, language that appeals to the senses, as a tool in achieving intensity in their work. An image communicates a sight, sound, smell, taste, or touch sensation.

For example, the following images might be used to describe a stroll on a summer night:

Sight—a full moon, partially obscured by a bank of clouds Sound—the chirp of a cricket Taste— the spicy, rich sweetness of a date

Touch—dew on the grass soaking through my tennis shoes Smell—clean smell of pine trees damp with melting snow

Exercise: Think of Three Situations and record Five Senses you experience

The Fish { }Elizabeth Bishop

I caught a tremendous fish and held him beside the boat half out of water, with my hook fast in a corner of its mouth. He didn’t fight. He hadn’t fought at all. He hung a grunting weight, battered and venerable and homely. Here and there his brown skin hung in strips like ancient wallpaper, and its pattern of darker brown was like wallpaper: shapes like full-blown roses stained and lost through age. He was speckled with barnacles, fine rosettes of lime, and infested with tiny white sea-lice, and underneath two or three rags of green weed hung down. While his gills were breathing in the terrible oxygen — the frightening gills, fresh and crisp with blood, that can cut so badly — I thought of the coarse white flesh


packed in like feathers, the big bones and the little bones, the dramatic reds and blacks of his shiny entrails, and the pink swim-bladder like a big peony. I looked into his eyes which were far larger than mine but shallower, and yellowed, the irises backed and packed with tarnished tinfoil seen through the lenses of old scratched isinglass. They shifted a little, but not to return my stare. — It was more like the tipping of an object toward the light. I admired his sullen face, the mechanism of his jaw, and then I saw that from his lower lip — if you could call it a lip — grim, wet, and weaponlike, hung five old pieces of fish-line, or four and a wire leader with the swivel still attached, with all their five big hooks grown firmly in his mouth. A green line, frayed at the end where he broke it, two heavier lines, and a fine black thread still crimped from the strain and snap when it broke and he got away. Like medals with their ribbons frayed and wavering, a five-haired beard of wisdom trailing from his aching jaw. I stared and stared and victory filled up the little rented boat, from the pool of bilge where oil had spread a rainbow around the rusted engine to the bailer rusted orange, the sun-cracked thwarts, the oarlocks on their strings, the gunnels — until everything


was rainbow, rainbow, rainbow! And I let the fish go.

EXAMPLE:

Imagery emulationThe Death of a RainbowJim Kristofic

The kestrel twisted dead at my feetIs food for ants. The raptor burns with blue and red.Such beauty in those wings,Once high in the sunfire, they carried murder in the air.Knives to cut the wind. Now they rot in a sheet of sour dirt.I move those feathered curtains asideAnd peer into the visage of Predator.It was once violent and fearless;Now it is dead and fearless.Nothing changes in its perfection.The dead beak would still draw blood if I touched it.As would the talons:Tiny sickles of death That end the golden scales of feet. The kestrel is a killer:A warplane of tranquil ferocity.I spread its wings, one after the other; I pluck a feather from the left. It separates with the sound of escaping air, I scan around, sweating like a thief, Hold it in the thick, fat fingers.It is a beautiful spearhead; Simplicity unnamed.We must engineer, mechanize, and always be sure to check a fuel tank:If not we fall like scattered bricks. The kestrel need only flap. How did such a thing as God make such a thing?And once the answer was found,How did such a thing as God create those toCover the body of such a creature?And how could such a thing as God let such a creature as this lay dead in my hands?


PERSONIFICATION is figurative language that attributes human characteristics to a creature, idea, or object.

Read these examples of personification.

Creature: The zebra read the "No Trespassing" sign, ignored the message, and entered the school yard.

Complaining and gossiping, the noisy elephants trudged lazily through the jungle.

Idea: Curiosity teased the boy into reading his sister's diary. Old age stalked him and finally struck him down.

Object: The rock teasingly tripped me, as if to play a joke. The vines tried to choke the jungle explorer.

Write down five objects and give an original personification for each:

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.


APOSTROPHE

Closely related to personification is apostrophe, which consists in addressing someone absent or dead or something nonhuman as if that person or thing were present and alive and could reply to what is being said. The speaker in A. E. Housman's "To an Athlete Dying Young" apostrophizes a dead runner. William Blake apostrophizes a tiger throughout his famous poem but does not otherwise personify it. Keats apostrophizes as well as personifies autumn. Personification and apostrophe are both ways of giving life and immediacy to one's language, but since neither requires great imaginative power on the part of the poet—apostrophe especially does not—they may degenerate into mere mannerisms and are to be found as often in bad and mediocre poetry as in good. We need to distinguish between their effective use and their merely conventional use.

The Tiger { }William BlakeTiger, tiger, burning bright In the forests of the night, What immortal hand or eye Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

In what distant deeps or skies Burnt the fire of thine eyes? On what wings dare he aspire? What the hand dare seize the fire?

And what shoulder and what art Could twist the sinews of thy heart? And when thy heart began to beat, What dread hand and what dread feet?

What the hammer? what the chain? In what furnace was thy brain? What the anvil? What dread grasp Dare its deadly terrors clasp?

When the stars threw down their spears, And water'd heaven with their tears, Did He smile His work to see? Did He who made the lamb make thee?

Tiger, tiger, burning bright In the forests of the night, What immortal hand or eye Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?


SYNECDOCHE & METONYMY

Synecdoche (the use of the part for the whole) and metonymy (the use of something closely related for the thing actually meant) are alike in that both substitute some significant detail or aspect of an experience for the experience itself. Thus, Shakespeare uses synecdoche when he says that the cuckoo's song is unpleasing to a "married ear", for he means a married man. See if you can spot the synecdoche:

Out, Out – { }Robert Frost

The buzz-saw snarled and rattled in the yardAnd made dust and dropped stove-length sticks of wood,Sweet-scented stuff when the breeze drew across it.And from there those that lifted eyes could countFive mountain ranges one behind the otherUnder the sunset far into Vermont.And the saw snarled and rattled, snarled and rattled,As it ran light, or had to bear a load.And nothing happened: day was all but done.Call it a day, I wish they might have saidTo please the boy by giving him the half hourThat a boy counts so much when saved from work.His sister stood beside them in her apronTo tell them "Supper." At the word, the saw,As if to prove saws knew what supper meant,Leaped out at the boy's hand, or seemed to leap—He must have given the hand. However it was,Neither refused the meeting. But the hand!The boy's first outcry was a rueful laugh,As he swung toward them holding up the handHalf in appeal, but half as if to keepThe life from spilling. Then the boy saw all—Since he was old enough to know, big boyDoing a man's work, though a child at heart—He saw all spoiled. "Don't let him cut my hand off—The doctor, when he comes. Don't let him, sister!"So. But the hand was gone already.The doctor put him in the dark of ether.He lay and puffed his lips out with his breath.And then—the watcher at his pulse took fright.No one believed. They listened at his heart.Little—less—nothing!—and that ended it.No more to build on there. And they, since theyWere not the one dead, turned to their affairs.


I Like to See It Lap the Miles { }Emily Dickinson

I like to see it lap the Miles --And lick the Valleys up --And stop to feed itself at Tanks --And then -- prodigious step

Around a Pile of Mountains --And supercilious peerIn Shanties -- by the sides of Roads --And then a Quarry pare

To fit its RibsAnd crawl betweenComplaining all the whileIn horrid -- hooting stanza --Then chase itself down Hill --

And neigh like Boanerges --Then -- punctual as a StarStop -- docile and omnipotentAt its own stable door --


SYMBOLS

A symbol is an object, person, place, or action that has meaning of its own but also stands for something beyond itself, such as a quality, concept, or value.

Examples of commonly understood symbols include:o a heart to symbolize loveo a skull and crossbones to suggest poisono spring to symbolize new life

Sometimes poets use symbols that require careful interpretation. Some examples are:o a rose to symbolize loveo a turn in the road to symbolize a choice in lifeo fish in a net to symbolize ideas in someone's mindo a snake concealed in the grass to symbolize hidden threats

Name an object, person, place, or action that you could use to symbolize each of the following.

freedom _________________________________ a new opportunity _____________________________

a difficult experience ______________________ making a new friend ___________________________

a disappointment _______________________ a politician __________________________________

telling a lie ______________________________ being a complicated person _____________________

an annoying child _______________________ an aggressive salesman _________________________

Dream Deferred { }Langston Hughes

What happens to a dream deferred?Does it dry upLike a raisin in the sun?Or fester like a sore--And then run?Does it stink like rotten meat?Or crust and sugar over--like a syrupy sweet?Maybe it just sagslike a heavy load.Or does it explode?


The Sick Rose { }William Blake

O Rose, thou art sick! The invisible worm That flies in the night, In the howling storm,

Has found out thy bed Of crimson joy, And his dark secret love Does thy life destroy.

{DRAMATIC POETRY} - an imaginary character speaks to a silent listener. In this sense, it is much like a speech from a play.

Ulysses { }Alfred Lord Tennyson

Ulysses, the king of Ithaca and a leader in the Trojan War, is the hero of Homer’s Odyssey. In the poem that follows, Tennyson describes the restless longing of the now aged hero for one last adventure.

It little profits that an idle king˚, UlyssesBy this still hearth, among these barren crags,Matched with an agèd wife˚, I mete and dole˚ Penelope, measure and give outUnequal laws˚ unto a savage race, unfair lawsThat hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me. 5I cannot rest from travel: I will drinkLife to the lees˚: all times I have enjoyed sedimentGreatly, have suffered greatly, both with thoseThat loved me, and alone; on shore, and whenThrough scudding drifts the rainy Hyades˚ an open cluster of stars in the10Vexed the dim sea: I am become a name; constellation Taurus, thought to For always roaming with a hungry heart cause rain when it rose with the sunMuch have I seen and known; cities of menAnd manners, climates, councils, governments,Myself not least, but honored of them all – 15And drunk delight of battle with my peers,Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy.I am a part of all that I have met;Yet all experience is an arch wherethroughGleams that untraveled world, whose margin fades 20For ever and for ever when I move.How dull it is to pause, to make an end,To rust unburnished, not to shine in use!As though to breathe were life. Life piled on lifeWere all too little, and of one to me 25Little remains: but every hour is savedFrom that eternal silence, something more,A bringer of new things; and vile it wereFor some three suns to store and hoard myself,And this grey spirit yearning in desire 30To follow knowledge like a sinking star,Beyond the utmost bound of human thought.

This my son, mine own Telemachus,To whom I leave the scepter and the isle˚— Ithaca, an island off the coast of


Well-loved of me, discerning to fulfill Greece. Telemachus is to 35This labor, by slow prudence to make mild inherit his father’s kingdom thereA rugged people, and through soft degreesSubdue them to the useful and the good.Most blameless is he, centered in the sphereOf common duties, decent not to fail 40In offices of tenderness, and payMeet˚ adoration to my household gods, appropriateWhen I am gone. He works his work, I mine.

There lies the port; the vessel puffs her sail;There gloom the dark broad seas. My mariners, 45Souls that have toiled, and wrought, and thought with me—That ever with a frolic welcome tookThe thunder and the sunshine, and opposedFree hearts, free foreheads—you and I are old;Old age hath yet his honor and his toil. 50Death closes all: but something ere the end,Some work of noble note, may yet be done,Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods.The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks;The long day wanes: the slow moon climbs: the deep 55Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends,'Tis not too late to seek a newer world.Push off, and sitting well in order smiteThe sounding furrows; for my purpose holdsTo sail beyond the sunset, and the baths 60Of all the western stars, until I die.It may be that the gulfs will wash us down;It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles˚, Islands of the Blessed, Elysium, the dwelling place And see the great Achilles, whom we knew. of heroes or virtuous people after deathThough much is taken, much abides; and though 65We are not now that strength which in old daysMoved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are –One equal temper of heroic hearts,Made weak by time and fate, but strong in willTo strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield. 70


To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time (Lyric)

Gather ye rosebuds while ye may, Old Time is still a-flying:And this same flower that smiles today, Tomorrow will be dying.

The glorious Lamp of Heaven, the Sun, 5 The higher he's a-getting,The sooner will his Race be run, And nearer he's to setting.

That Age is best which is the first, When youth and blood are warmer; 10But being spent,

That’s my last Duchess painted on the wall, Looking as if she were alive. I call That piece a wonder, now: Fra Pandolf’s˚ hands the work of Brother Pandolf, an imaginary painterWorked busily a day, and there she stands. Will’t please you sit and look at her? I said 5“Fra Pandolf” by design, for never read Strangers like you that pictured countenance, The depth and passion of its earnest glance, But to myself they turned (since none puts by The curtain I have drawn for you, but I) 10And seemed as they would ask me, if they durst˚, daredHow such a glance came there; so, not the first Are you to turn and ask thus. Sir, ’twas not Her husband’s presence only, called that spot Of joy into the Duchess’ cheek: perhaps 15Fra Pandolf chanced to say “Her mantle laps Over my lady’s wrist too much,” or “Paint Must never hope to reproduce the faint Half-flush that dies along her throat”: such stuff Was courtesy, she thought, and cause enough 20For calling up that spot of joy. She had A heart—how shall I say?—too soon made glad, Too easily impressed; she liked whate’er She looked on, and her looks went everywhere. Sir, ’twas all one! My favour at her breast, 25The dropping of the daylight in the West,The bough of cherries some officious fool Broke in the orchard for her, the white mule She rode with round the terrace—all and each Would draw from her alike the approving speech, 30Or blush, at least. She thanked men,—good! but thanked Somehow—I know not how—as if she ranked My gift of a nine-hundred-years-old name With anybody’s gift. Who’d stoop to blame This sort of trifling? Even had you skill 35In speech—(which I have not)—to make your will


Quite clear to such an one, and say, “Just this Or that in you disgusts me; here you miss, Or there exceed the mark”—and if she let Herself be lessoned so, nor plainly set 40Her wits to yours, forsooth˚, and made excuse, in truth—E’en then would be some stooping; and I choose Never to stoop. Oh sir, she smiled, no doubt,

Whene’er I passed her; but who passed without Much the same smile? This grew; I gave commands; 45Then all smiles stopped together. There she stands As if alive. Will’t please you rise? We’ll meet The company below, then. I repeat, The Count your master’s known munificence Is ample warrant that no just pretence 50Of mine for dowry will be disallowed; Though his fair daughter’s self, as I avowed At starting, is my object. Nay, we’ll go Together down, sir. Notice Neptune˚, though, in Roman mythology, the god of the seaTaming a sea-horse, thought a rarity, 55Which Claus of Innsbruck˚ cast in bronze for me. an imaginary Austrian sculptor

- Robert Browning (1812 – 1889)

ALLUSION

The famous English diplomat and letter writer Lord Chesterfield was once invited to a great dinner given by the Spanish ambassador. At the conclusion of the meal the host rose and proposed a toast to his master, the king of Spain, whom he compared to the sun. The French ambassador followed with a health to the king of France, whom he likened to the moon. It was then Lord Chesterfield's turn. "Your excellencies have taken from me," he said, "all the greatest luminaries of heaven, and the stars are too small for me to make a comparison of my royal master; I therefore beg leave to give your excellencies—Joshua!"*

For a reader familiar with the Bible—that is, for one who recognizes the Biblical allusion—Lord Chesterfield's story will come as a stunning revelation of his wit. For an allusion—a reference to something in history or previous literature—is, like a richly connotative word or a symbol, a means of suggesting far more than it says. The one word "Joshua," in the context of Chesterfield's toast, calls up in the reader's mind the whole Biblical story of how the Israelite captain stopped the sun and the moon in order that the Israelites might finish a battle and conquer their enemies before nightfall. The force of the toast lies in its extreme economy; it says so much in so little, and it exercises the mind of the reader to make the connection for himself.The effect of Chesterfield's allusion is chiefly humorous or witty, but allusions may also have a powerful emotional effect. Allusions are a means of reinforcing the emotion or the ideas of one's own work with the emotion or ideas of another work or occasion. Because they are capable of saying so much in so little, they are extremely useful to the poet.

In the Garden (Lyric)

In the garden there strayed A beautiful maidAs fair as the flowers of the morn; The first hour of her life She was made a man's wife,And was buried before she was born.


- Anonymous

Resolve the paradox by identifying the allusion.

Percy Bysshe Shelley

When he died in a boating accident at age thirty, Percy Bysshe Shelley was eulogized by his friend Byron as “without exception the best and least selfish man I knew.” This seems strange praise indeed, considering it was directed at a man whose disenchantment with the world was at least as great as his appreciation of its beauties. At once modest and intense, Shelley was a poet of rare gift. He was also a self-appointed reformer who believed that humankind was capable

of attaining a more perfect society. Shelley attended several prestigious schools but was never able to settle into the routine of student. His idiosyncratic, sensitive nature and refusal to conform to tradition earned him the name "Mad Shelley." At Oxford he befriended a young man named Thomas Jefferson Hogg, whose politically views were as strong as his own. The friendship further fueled Shelley’s rebellious nature, and when with Hogg’s support he wrote a pamphlet titled The Necessity of Atheism, both were expelled. The incident led to trouble between Shelley and his father; this led to his moving to London where he met and married sixteen-year-old Harriet Westbrook. Although their marriage began to falter, he remarried Harriet in England to ensure the legality of their union and the legitimacy of their children. Weeks later, however, he fell in love with Mary Godwin, the sixteen-year-

old daughter of the radical English philosopher William Godwin and his first wife, the feminist author Mary Wollstonecraft. Shelley and Mary eloped and, accompanied by Mary's stepsister, Jane (Claire) Clairmont, spent six weeks in Europe. On their return, Shelley entered into a financial agreement with his family that ensured him a regular income. Throughout his career Shelley wrote numerous short lyrics that have proved to be among his most popular works. Characterized by a simple, personal tone, his minor poems frequently touch on themes central to his more ambitious works: the "Hymn to Intellectual Beauty" and "Mont Blanc" focus on his belief in an animating spirit, while "Ode to the West Wind" examines opposing forces in nature. In other lyrics, Shelley explores his own experiences and emotions. Political themes also inspired several of his most famous short poems. Shelley's shorter lyrics, praised for their urbane wit and polished style, have established him as a preeminent poet of nature, ideal love, and beauty. During his lifetime he was generally regarded as a misguided or even depraved genius; critics frequently praised portions of his poetry in passing and deplored at length his atheism and unorthodox philosophy. Serious study of his works was hindered by widespread rumors about his personal life, particularly those concerning his desertion of Harriet and his supposed involvement in an incestuous love triangle with Mary and Claire. In addition, because of their limited publication and the scant critical attention given his works, he found only a small audience. Nevertheless, Shelley was known and admired by his great contemporaries: Byron, Keats, William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and Robert Southey regarded his works with varying degrees of sympathy and approval. Shelley has been called the perfect poet of the Romantic era. One need only consider his emotional response to life and his belief in personal freedom to appreciate how fitting that title is.

SONNET

A sonnet is a fourteen-line lyric poem focused on a single theme. Sonnets have many variations, but are usually written in iambic pentameter, following one of two traditional patterns.

The Petrarchan or Italian sonnet is divided into two parts, the eight-line octave and the six-line sestet. The octave rhymes abba abba, while the sestet generally rhymes cde cde or uses some combination of cd rhymes. The two parts of the Petrarchan sonnet works together. The octave raises a question, states a problem, or presents a brief narrative, and the sestet answers the question, solves the problem, or comments on the narrative.


The Shakespearean or English sonnet has three four-line quatrains plus a concluding two-line couplet. The rhyme scheme of such a sonnet is usually abab cdcd efef gg. Each of the three quatrains usually explores a different variation of the main theme. The couplet then presents a summarizing or concluding statement.

The sonnet occupies a particular place of distinction among the poems of William Wordsworth. Though a champion of freedom and spontaneity in poetry, Wordsworth nevertheless recognized the importance of order and discipline. As a relatively short a decisive poetic statement, the sonnet was the logical vehicle for treating such subjects as the human condition and the importance of nature to the human spirit.

Ozymandias˚ (Sonnet)

I met a traveler from an antique land Who said, "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone Stand in the desert…. Near them, on the sand, Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown, And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command, 5Tell that its sculptor well those passions readWhich yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things, The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed: And on the pedestal these words appear: "My name is OZYMANDIAS, King of Kings: 10Look on my works ye Mighty, and despair!” Nothing beside remains. Round the decay Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare, The lone and level sands stretch far away.

- Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822)

˚ Greek name for the Egyptian ruler Rameses II, a pharaoh who ruled Egypt during the 13th century B.C. and built many great palaces and statues. He erected a large statue in his likeness on which was inscribed, “I am Ozymandias, king of kings, if anyone wished to know what I am and where I lie, let him surpass me in some of my exploits.”

Sonnet: 14 lines, iambic pentameter, definite rhyme pattern

Two Basic Forms

Petrarchan or Italian Shakespearean or English

8 lines—abba abba 4 lines—abab 6 lines—cdcdcd 4 lines—cdcd or 4 lines—efef cde cde 2 lines—gg or a variation of these

Sonnets always have 14 lines and their rhythm is nearly always iambic pentameter; however, variations in rhyme pattern are acceptable.


BLANK VERSE

Blank verse is poetry written in unrhymed iambic pentameter lines. Each iambic foot has one weakly stressed syllable followed by one strongly stressed syllable. A pentameter line has five of these feet. Blank verse usually contains occasional variations in rhythm – variations that are introduced to create emphasis, variety, and naturalness of sound. Blank verse, which was introduced into English literature by the Earl of Surrey, can be stately and dignified, but it can also produce an effect of smooth, natural speech more effectively than most other metrical patterns. Due to its flexibility and versatility, as well as the fact that it sounds much like ordinary spoken English, it is often used in drama and poetry. Great English writers of blank verse have included Shakespeare, Wordsworth, Browning, and Auden.

Example from Macbeth (1.7.60-1):

U / U / U / U / U /But screw │ your cour │ age to │ the stick │ ing place

U / U / U / U / U /And we’ll │ not fail. │ When Dun │ can is │ asleep –

Macbeth Act V, scene v (Blank Verse)

She should have died hereafter;There would have been a time for such a word.To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrowCreeps in this petty pace from day to dayTo the last syllable of recorded time,And all our yesterdays have lighted foolsThe way to dusty death. Out , out , brief candle!Life's but a walking shadow, a poor playerThat struts and frets his hour upon the stageAnd then is heard no more: it is a taleTold by an idiot, full of sound and fury,Signifying nothing.

- William Shakespeare (1564-1616)


Robert Burns

No other name is more synonymous with the title “The Voice of Scotland” than that of the poet Robert Burns. A farmer and a farmer’s son, Burns spent his early years in the two-room clay cottage his father had built. Although poverty prevented Burns from receiving a formal education, with his father’s encouragement he read widely, studying the

Bible, Shakespeare, and Alexander Pope on his own. His mother, though illiterate, instilled in him a love of Scottish folk songs, legends, and proverbs. In 1786 Burns published his first collection of poems at a small local press. Although the collection, which included “To a Mouse,” was successful, Burns first came to the attention of the public at large the following year when a fuller collection, Poems: Chiefly in Scottish, was published in Edinburgh. He was invited to the Scottish capital, where he was swept into the social scene, if only as something of a rustic curiosity. He left Edinburgh in 1788 to explore the English border region and the Highlands. Later that year he married Jean Amour, his sweetheart of many years, and returned to the farm to work the land. The soil proved unproductive, and he was forced to take a position with Scotland’s department of taxation. It was during this time that he continued to refine his poetic style and turned out some of his finest verses. At the outbreak of the French Revolution, he became an outspoken supporter of

the republican cause, a move that threatened his job and alienated many of his friends. Burns died at the age of 37 from rheumatic heart disease, apparently caused by excessive physical exertion and frequent undernourishment as a child. Thousands of people from all social levels followed his coffin to the grave, and he was acclaimed the national poet of Scotland. Burns’ numerous adventures produced many lyrics that figure among the most natural and spontaneous the English language has produced. Written for the most part in dialect, his poems are characterized by innocence, honesty, and simplicity. First and last a people’s poet, Burns crafted poetic “melodies” that speak to “the sons and daughters of labor and poverty” – and for them. Though some of the poet’s work had its origins in folk tunes, “it is not” as James Douglas wrote, “easy to tell where the vernacular ends and the personal magic begins.” The vitality and sincerity which critics and the public alike have found in Burns' work strike a chord which seems to translate the national poet of Scotland into a universal poet claimed by all. Although many of Burns' concerns are ostensibly local ones, and the setting and circumstances of his poetry are unmistakably Scottish, the themes he sounds are those which transcend particulars to achieve universality.

ODE

An ode is a long, formal lyric poem with a serious theme. Most odes are dignified or exalted in subject matter and style. The word ode comes from a Greek word meaning “song.” The first odes were written in Classical times by the Greek poet Pindar and the Latin poet Horace. The Pindaric ode, which is the more frequently imitated of the two types, consists of three alternating stanza patterns (triad) called the strophe (sung by one half of a choir), the antistrophe (sung by the other half of the choir), and the epode (sung by the entire choir). Shelley’s “Ode to the West Wind” is a Pindaric ode. Once recognizable by its shape, the ode today is more a matter of tone and intention than of structure. An ode may be written for a private occasion, as was John Keats’s “Ode to a Nightingale,” which was written about a bird nesting near a friend’s home. On the other hand, an ode may be prepared for a public ceremony., as was John Dryden’s “A Song for St. Cecelia’s Day,” which was performed in 1687 at an annual festival. Odes often honor people, commemorate events, respond to natural scenes, or consider serious human problems.


To A MouseOn Turning Her up in Her Nest with the Plough, November, 1785

Wee, sleekit˚, cow'rin, tim'rous beastie, sleekO, what a panic's in thy breastie˚! breastThou need na start awa sae hasty, Wi' bickering brattle˚! in sudden flightI wad be laith˚ to rin an’ chase thee, would be loathe 5 Wi' murd'ring pattle˚! paddle for cleaning a plow

Ode on a Grecian Urn (Ode)

Thou still unravished bride of quietness, Thou foster-child of silence and slow time, Sylvan˚ historian, who canst thou express rustic, representing the woods or forest A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme –What leaf-fringed legend haunt about thy shape 5 Of deities or mortals, or of both, In Tempe˚ or the dales of Arcady˚? beautiful valley in Greece representing supreme rural beauty What men or gods are these? What maidens loath? region on Greece representing supreme pastoral contentmentWhat mad pursuit? What struggle to escape? What pipes and timbrels˚? What wild ecstasy? tambourines 10

Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard Are sweeter: therefore, ye soft pipes, play on; Not to the sensual ear, but, more endeared, Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone: Fair youth, beneath the trees, thou canst not leave 15 Thy song, nor ever can those trees be bare; Bold lover, never, never canst thou kiss, Though winning near the goal - yet, do not grieve; She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss, For ever wilt thou love, and she be fair! 20

Ah, happy, happy boughs! that cannot shed Your leaves, nor ever bid the spring adieu; And, happy melodist, unwearied, For ever piping songs for ever new; More happy love! more happy, happy love! 25 For ever warm and still to be enjoyed, For ever panting, and for ever young; All breathing human passion far above, That leaves a heart high-sorrowful and cloyed, A burning forehead, and a parching tongue. 30

Who are these coming to the sacrifice? To what green altar, O mysterious priest, Lead'st thou that heifer lowing at the skies, And all her silken flanks with garlands dressed? What little town by river or sea shore, 35 Or mountain-built with peaceful citadel, Is emptied of this folk, this pious morn? And, little town, thy streets for evermore


http://www.robertburns.org/works/glossary/1346.html







Will silent be; and not a soul to tell Why thou art desolate, can e'er return. 40

O Attic˚ shape! Fair attitude! with brede˚ Attica (region in Greece in which Athens was located), characterized Of marble men and maidens overwrought˚, by grace & simplicity, an interwoven pattern, all overWith forest branches and the trodden weed; Thou, silent form, dost tease us out of thought As doth eternity: Cold˚ Pastoral! unchanging 45 When old age shall this generation waste, Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say'st, "Beauty is truth, truth beauty," - that is all Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know. 50

- John Keats (1795 – 1821)


BALLAD

A ballad is a songlike poem that tells a story, often one dealing with adventure or romance. Most ballads have the following characteristics:

four- or six-line stanzas rhyme simple language dramatic action

Many ballads employ repetition of a refrain (a regularly repeated line or group of lines in a poem or song). Some make use of incremental repetition, in which a refrain is varied slightly each time it appears. The British Isles have a rich tradition of folk ballads – songs that originated among illiterate peoples and were passed from singer to singer by word of mouth. Many English, Scottish, Welsh, and Irish writers have also created literary ballads – sophisticated ballads in the style of folk ballads.

The typical ballad fixes on the most dramatic part of a story, moving to its conclusion by means of dialogue and a series of incidents. Such a poem could be narrative or lyric, sung or not sung, crude or polite, sentimental or satiric, religious or secular; it was vaguely associated with dance. The word is still commonly used in this loose fashion. In this sense, ballads tend to have a tight dramatic structure that sometimes omits all preliminary material, all exposition and description, even all motivation, to focus on the climactic scene (as in the British “Lord Randall”). It is as though the ballad presented only the last act of a play, leaving the listener or reader to supply the antecedent material. When the ballad emerged, it was a new form of art and literature, distinct from anything that had gone before.

Ballad Stanza

A ballad stanza is a four- or six-line stanza form. In a typical four-line ballad stanza, the first and third lines each have four stresses, the second and fourth lines each have three stresses and also rhyme. Thus, the usual rhyme scheme is abcb, although some ballads follow the abab scheme.

Lord Randal (Ballad)

"O where ha you been, Lord Randal, my son?And where ha˚ you been, my handsome young man?" have"I ha been at the greenwood; mother, mak˚ my bed soon, makeFor I'm wearied wi˚ hunting, and fain wad˚ lie down." with, would

"An wha˚ met ye there, Lord Randal, my son? who 5And wha met ye there, my handsome young man?""O I met wi my true-love; mother, mak my bed soon,For I'm wearied wi huntin, and fain wad lie down."

"And what did she give you, Lord Randal, My son?And wha did she give you, my handsome young man?" 10"Eels fried in a pan; mother, mak my bed soon,For I'm wearied wi huntin, and fein wad lie down."


"And what gat˚ your leavins, Lord Randal my son? gotAnd wha gat your leavins˚, my handsome young man?" that which is left over"My hawks and my hounds; mother, mak my bed soon, 15For I'm wearied wi huntin, and fein wad lie down."

"And what becam of them, Lord Randal, my son?And what becam of them, my handsome young man?"They stretched their legs out and died; mother mak my bed soon,For I'm wearied wi huntin, and fain wad lie down." 20

"O I fear you are poisoned, Lord Randal, my son!I fear you are poisoned, my handsome young man!""O yes, I am poisoned; mother, mak my bed soon,For I'm sick at the heart, and fain wad lie down."

"What d'ye leave to your mother, Lord Randal, my son? 25What d'ye leave to your mother, my handsome young man?""Four and twenty milk kye˚; mother, mak my bed soon, cowFor I'm sick at the heart, and I fain wad lie down."

"What d'ye leave to your sister, Lord Randal, my son?What d'ye leave to your sister, my handsome young man?" 30"My gold and my silver; mother mak my bed soon,For I'm sick at the heart, an I fain wad lie down."

"What d'ye leave to your brother, Lord Randal, my son?What d'ye leave to your brother, my handsome young man?""My houses and my lands; mother, mak my bed soon, 35For I'm sick at the heart, and I fain wad lie down."

"What d'ye leave to your true-love, Lord Randal, my son?What d'ye leave to your true-love, my handsome young man?""I leave her hell and fire; mother mak my bed soon,For I'm sick at the heart, and I fain wad lie down." 40


Margaret Atwood

Internationally acclaimed as a novelist, poet, and short story writer, Atwood has emerged as a major figure in Canadian letters. Using such devices as irony, symbolism, and self-conscious narrators, she explores the relationship between humanity and nature, unsettling aspects of human behavior, and power as it pertains to gender and political roles. Her authorial voice has sometimes been described as formal and emotionally distant, but her talent for allegory and intense imagery informs an intellectual and sardonic style popular with both literary scholars and the reading public. Atwood has also been instrumental as a critic. She has helped define the identity and goals of contemporary Canadian literature and has

earned a distinguished reputation among feminist writers for her exploration of women's issues. Atwood was born in Ottawa and grew up in suburban Toronto, a metropolitan area that appears in many of her stories and novels. As a child she spent her summers at her family cottage in a wilderness region of Quebec, where her father, a forest entomologist, conducted research. She first began to write while in high school, contributing poetry, short stories, and cartoons to the school newspaper. As an undergraduate at the University of Toronto, Atwood met the critic Northrop Frye, who introduced her to the poetry of William Blake. Influenced by Blake's contrasting mythological imagery, Atwood wrote the poems collected in her first volume, Double Persephone (1961). While this work demonstrated her penchant for using metaphorical language, it was her second volume of poetry, The Circle Game (1966), that garnered widespread critical recognition. The winner of the 1967 Governor

General's Award, Canada's highest literary honor, The Circle Game established the major themes of Atwood's poetry: the inconsistencies of self-perception, the paradoxical nature of language, Canadian identity, and the conflicts between humankind and nature. Sherrill Grace commented: "[Atwood] is constantly aware of opposites—self/other, subject/object, male/female, nature/man—and of the need to accept and work within them." Atwood explored the meaning of art and literature in the volume The Animals in That Country (1968). Presenting the poet as both performer and creator, she questioned the authenticity of the writing process and the effects of literature on both the writer and the reader. Although all of her verse explores the uniqueness of the Canadian psyche, it was in The Journals of Susanna Moodie (1970) that Atwood devoted her attention to what she calls the schizoid, double nature of Canada. Centered on the narratives of a Canadian pioneer woman, Journals examines why Canadians came to develop ambivalent feelings toward their country. Atwood further developed this dichotomy in Power Politics (1971), in which she explored the relationship between sexual roles and power structures by focusing on personal relationships and international politics. Atwood addressed feminist concerns through satire and irony in the novels The Edible Woman (1969), Surfacing (1972), Life before Man (1979), and Bodily Harm (1982). These works feature intelligent and independent women in search of meaning and self-identity in the midst of unsettling situations. While developing serious subject matter and focusing on troubled characters struggling for survival, these works feature detached humor and penetrating, ironic insights into the human condition and contradictions in contemporary life. Atwood turned to speculative fiction with her novel The Handmaid's Tale (1986). In this work she created the dystopia of Gilead, a future America in which Fundamentalist Christians have imposed dictatorial rule. Here, in a world polluted by toxic chemicals and nuclear radiation, most women are sterile; those who are able to bear children are forced to become Handmaids, official breeders who enjoy some privileges yet remain under constant surveillance. Almost all other women have been deemed expendable, except those who embrace the repressive religious hierarchy run by men. Although Atwood's strong feminist beliefs were evident in her previous novels, The Handmaid's Tale is the first of her works to be dominated by feminist concerns. Barbara Holliday wrote: "[Atwood] has been concerned in her fiction with the painful psychic warfare between men and women. [But] in The Handmaid's Tale, a futuristic satire, she casts subtlety aside, exposing woman's primal fear of being used and helpless." Many critics favorably compare The Handmaid's Tale with George Orwell's 1984 and other distinguished dystopian novels for its disturbing extension of contemporary trends and its allegorical portrait of political extremism.


Death of a Young Son by Drowning (Elegy)

He, who navigated with successthe dangerous river of his own birthonce more set forth

on a voyage of discoveryinto the land I floated on 5but could not touch to claim.

His feet slid on the bank,the currents took him;he swirled with ice and trees in the swollen water

and plunged into distant regions, 10his head a bathysphere;through his eyes' thin glass bubbles

he looked out, reckless adventureron a landscape stranger than Uranuswe have all been to and some remember. 15

There was an accident; the air locked,he was hung in the river like a heart.They retrieved the swamped body,

cairn of my plans and future charts,with poles and hooks 20from among the nudging logs.

It was spring, the sun kept shining, the new grassleapt to solidity;my hands glistened with details.

After the long trip I was tired of waves. 25My foot hit rock. The dreamed sailscollapsed, ragged.

I planted him in this countrylike a flag.

- Margaret Atwood (1939 - )


D.H. Lawrence

Although D.H. Lawrence is best known for his novels and short stories, he was also a fine poet. His poetry, like his prose, concentrates on the life-giving force of nature, exalting the physical and instinctual over the purely intellectual. Writing in free verse, Lawrence produced a number of powerful and original poems that evoke the “blood consciousness” and “dark gods” he sought. His “belief in the blood” was not merely his philosophy, but was the dynamic force, the energy, that fueled his poetic imagination.Deeply influenced by the pioneering psychological theories of Sigmund Freud and the philosophies of Friedrich Nietzsche, Lawrence sought confirmation for the moral rightness of his deepest convictions – that the industrial social order was unjust, that open expression of sexuality was healthy, and that human beings could find true fulfillment only by living in harmony with nature.

Though viewed as a controversial author during his lifetime, today his fiction is universally admired for its vivid setting, fine craftsmanship, and psychological insight. Lawrence has come to be regarded as one of the twentieth century's most important novelists. In his innovative use of psychological themes he produced the first, and some critics maintain the finest, modern psychological novels. Nonetheless, debate over controversial aspects of Lawrence's work continues. Following his death in 1930, the London Times regretted that Lawrence "confused decency with hypocrisy, and honesty with the free and public use of vulgar words," while E. M. Forster contemporaneously lauded him as "the greatest imaginative genius of our generation."

Snake (Free Verse - See P. 9)

A snake came to my water-troughOn a hot, hot day, and I in pajamas for the heat, To drink there.

In the deep, strange-scented shade of the great dark carob-treeI came down the steps with my pitcher 5And must wait, must stand and wait, for there he was at the trough before me.

He reached down from a fissure in the earth-wall in the gloomAnd trailed his yellow-brown slackness soft-bellied down, over the edge of the stone troughAnd rested his throat upon the stone bottom,And where the water had dripped from the tap, in a small clearness, 10He sipped with his straight mouth,Softly drank through his straight gums, into his slack long body, Silently.

Someone was before me at my water-trough,And I, like a second comer, waiting. 15

He lifted his head from his drinking, as cattle do,And looked at me vaguely, as drinking cattle do,And flickered his two-forked tongue from his lips, and mused a moment, And stooped and drank a little more,Being earth-brown, earth-golden from the burning bowels of the earth 20On the day of Sicilian July, with Etna˚ smoking. a volcanic mountain in Eastern Sicily


The voice of my education said to meHe must be killed,For in Sicily the black, black snakes are innocent, the gold are venomous.

And voices in me said, If you were a man 25You would take a stick and break him now, and finish him off.

But must I confess how I liked him,How glad I was he had come like a guest in quiet, to drink at my water-troughAnd depart peaceful, pacified, and thankless,Into the burning bowels of this earth? 30

Was it cowardice, that I dared not kill him? Was it perversity˚, that I longed to talk to him? state of being wicked or wrongWas it humility, to feel so honored?I felt so honored.

And yet those voices: 35If you were not afraid, you would kill him!

And truly I was afraid, I was most afraid, But even so, honored still moreThat he should seek my hospitalityFrom out the dark door of the secret earth. 40

He drank enough And lifted his head, dreamily, as one who has drunken, And flickered his tongue like a forked night on the air, so black; Seeming to lick his lips,And looked around like a god, unseeing, into the air, 45And slowly turned his head, and slowly, very slowly, as if thrice adream, Proceeded to draw his slow length curving roundAnd climb again the broken bank of my wall-face.

And as he put his head into that dreadful hole, 50And as he slowly drew up, snake-easing his shoulders, and entered farther, A sort of horror, a sort of protest against his withdrawing into that horrid black hole,Deliberately going into the blackness, and slowly drawing himself after,Overcame me now his back was turned.

I looked round, I put down my pitcher, 55I picked up a clumsy logAnd threw it at the water-trough with a clatter.

I think it did not hit him, But suddenly that part of him that was left behind convulsed in undignified haste,Writhed like lightning, and was gone 60Into the black hole, the earth-lipped fissure in the wall-front, At which, in the intense still noon, I stared with fascination.

And immediately I regretted it.I thought how paltry, how vulgar, what a mean act!I despised myself and the voices of my accursed human education. 65


And I thought of the albatross˚, in Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner,”And I wished he would come back, my snake. the mariner shoots an Albatross, a traditional symbol of good luck.For he seemed to me again like a king, Like a king in exile, uncrowned in the underworld, 70Now due to be crowned again.

And so, I missed my chance with one of the lordsOf life.And I have something to expiate˚; to atone for, make amendsA pettiness. 75

- D.H. Lawrence (1885 – 1930)

Far over the misty mountains cold,To dungeons deep and caverns oldWe must away ere the break of day,To seek the pale enchanted gold.

The dwarves of yore made mighty spells,While hammers fell like ringing bellsIn places deep, where dark things sleep,In hollow halls beneath the fells.

For ancient kings and elvish lordThere many a gleaming golden hoardThey shaped and wrought, and light they caught,To hide in gems on hilt of sword.

On silver necklaces they strungThe flowering stars, on crowns they hungThe dragon-fire, in twisted wireThey meshed the light and moon and sun.

For over the misty mountains coldTo dungeons deep and caverns old,We must away ere break of day,To claim our long-forgotten gold.

Goblets they carved there for themselvesAnd harps of gold; where no man delvesThere lay they lay long, and many a songWas sung unheard by man or elves.


The pines were roaring on the height,The winds were moaning in the night.The fire was red, it flaming spread;Laid low like torches blazed with light.

The bells were ringing in the dale,And men looked up with faces pale,Then dragon's ire more fierce than fireLaid low their towers and houses frail.

The mountains smoked beneath the moon;The dwarves, they heard the tramp of doom.They fled their hall to dying fallBeneath his feet, beneath the moon.


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