The Last Night That She Lived

Emily Dickinson

The last Night that She lived
It was a Common Night
Except the Dying -- this to Us
Made Nature different

We noticed smallest things --
Things overlooked before
By this great light upon our Minds
Italicized -- as 'twere.

As We went out and in
Between Her final Room
And Rooms where Those to be alive
Tomorrow were, a Blame

That Others could exist
While She must finish quite
A Jealousy for Her arose
So nearly infinite --

We waited while She passed --
It was a narrow time --
Too jostled were Our Souls to speak
At length the notice came.

She mentioned, and forgot --
Then lightly as a Reed
Bent to the Water, struggled scarce --
Consented, and was dead --

And We -- We placed the Hair --
And drew the Head erect --
And then an awful leisure was
Belief to regulate --

2. Rephrase lines 11-12 and 12-15 so that their plain sense is clear.

11-12: "Rooms in which there were people who would be alive tomorrow"

12-15: "Anger and jealousy arose, that she should die while others continued to live"

3. What do the images of "a narrow time" (18) and "Too jostled" (19) contribute to the emotions of the poem?

"[N]arrow time"
4. Why is the comparison in lines 22-23 particularly effective?

5. Explain the emotional and spiritual adjustments expressed in the last four lines.

On the Sonnet

John Keats

If by dull rhymes our English must be chain’d,
And, like Andromeda, the Sonnet sweet
Fetter’d, in spite of pained loveliness;
Let us find out, if we must be constrain’d,
Sandals more interwoven and complete
To fit the naked foot of poesy;
Let us inspect the lyre, and weigh the stress
Of every chord, and see what may be gain’d
By ear industrious, and attention meet:
Misers of sound and syllable, no less
Than Midas of his coinage, let us be
Jealous of dead leaves in the bay wreath crown;
So, if we may not let the Muse be free,
She will be bound with garlands of her own.

2. The poem prescribes a specific approach to writing sonnets. What qualities does the speaker suggest a good sonnet should have?

Melodious, attention to the "sound" of the sonnet, the meter, the rhythm.

3. The speaker compares poetry to a foot and the sonnet form to a sandal. What does he mean by suggesting the sonnet should be "more interwoven and complete" (5)?

Sonnets are supposed to be better or carefully crafted. One should take care when writing a sonnet.

4. What negative qualities does the poem imply that bad sonnets display?

Ozymandias

Percy Bysshe Shelley

I met a traveller 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
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which 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:
Look 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.

1. "[S]urvive" (7) is a transitive verb with "hand" and "heart" as direct objects. Whose hand? Whose heart? What figure of speech is exemplified in "hand" and "heart"?

The hand and the heart are Ozymandias'.

2. Characterize Ozymandias.

Cold, callous, power-hungry, never satisfied, narcissistic.

3. Ozymandias was an ancient Egyptian tyrant. This poem was first published in 1817. Of what is Ozymandias a symbol? What contemporary reference might the poem have had in Shelley's time?

Ozymandias is a symbol for the decline of powerful leaders and their empires.

4. What is the theme of the poem and how is it "stated"?

All great leaders, and their empires, decay. This is made perfectly clear by the words on the pedestal of Ozymandias' statue: "Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"

Everything "Mighty" sooner or later falls into ruin.

The Chimney Sweeper

William Blake

When my mother died I was very young,
And my father sold me while yet my tongue
Could scarcely cry 'weep! 'weep! 'weep! 'weep!
So your chimneys I sweep, and in soot I sleep.

There's little Tom Dacre, who cried when his head,
That curled like a lamb's back, was shaved: so I said,
"Hush, Tom! never mind it, for when your head's bare,
You know that the soot cannot spoil your white hair."

And so he was quiet; and that very night,
As Tom was a-sleeping, he had such a sight, -
That thousands of sweepers, Dick, Joe, Ned, and Jack,
Were all of them locked up in coffins of black.

And by came an angel who had a bright key,
And he opened the coffins and set them all free;
Then down a green plain leaping, laughing, they run,
And wash in a river, and shine in the sun.

Then naked and white, all their bags left behind,
They rise upon clouds and sport in the wind;
And the angel told Tom, if he'd be a good boy,
He'd have God for his father, and never want joy.

And so Tom awoke; and we rose in the dark,
And got with our bags and our brushes to work.
Though the morning was cold, Tom was happy and warm;
So if all do their duty they need not fear harm.

1. Being a chimney sweep in the 18th century was awful. Characterize the boy who speaks in this poem. How do his and the poet's attitudes toward his lot in life differ? Look specifically at lines 3, 7-8, and 24.

The boy seems to have accepted his lot in life. He doesn't know anything else, this is what he's been doing his whole life. In line 3 ("Could scarcely cry 'weep! 'weep! 'weep! 'weep!") the boy is simply stating that he was a tiny child when he was sold to his master. The poet is sarcastic--the boy was made into a chimney sweep before his tongue could even form the word.

Lines 7-8, ""Hush, Tom! never mind it, for when your head's bare, You know that the soot cannot spoil your white hair."--while the boy speaking appears to be trying the make the best of his and his friend's situation, the poet is mimicking the attitude of those who let these boy be made into sweepers. Complaints are met with "oh, it's not so bad" and a careful does of spin.

Line 24, "So if all do their duty they need not fear harm."--again, the boy is making the best of his situation, and imagining a happy future for himself if he keeps working hard. The poet, on the other hand, is hinting at the treatment of the boys. Obedient, hardworking boys do not get punished.


2.The dream in lines 11-20, besides being a happy dream, can be interpreted allegorically. Point out possible significances of the sweepers' being "locked up in coffins of black" (12) and the Angel's releasing them with a bright key to play upon green plains.

The sweepers locked up in black coffins in the dream are locked up in black coffins in their lives, trapped inside of confining chimneys. I think the poet is talking about reform and putting an end to the labor these boys are sold into and forced to do.

To Autumn

John Keats

1.

SEASON of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;
To bend with apples the moss’d cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For Summer has o’er-brimm’d their clammy cells.

2.

Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;
Or on a half-reap’d furrow sound asleep,
Drows’d with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers:
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
Steady thy laden head across a brook;
Or by a cyder-press, with patient look,
Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.

3.

Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?
Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,—
While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,
And touch the stubble plains with rosy hue;
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
Among the river sallows, borne aloft
Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;
Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft;
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

2. How many kinds of imagery do you find in the poem? Give examples of each.

3. Are the images arranged haphazardly or are they carefully organized?

I think the poem was carefully organized. The first stanza kicks off the personification of autumn. The idea of "fruitfulness" that is first formed in stanza one carries on into the second stanza, but this stanza sees the beginning of the harvest, as evident by the mention of a granary and "a half-reaped furrow" (16). These first two stanzas are the process of maturing and aging, and the last stanza, one full of song. This last stanza alleviates the unspoken fears people have concerning their personal autum, comforting the reader by reminding them that the song of their spring has only been replaced by a new one.

4. What is autumn personified as in stanza 2? Is there and suggestion of personification in the other two stanzas?

Autumn is personified as a woman in stanza two. Personification is first used in the first stanza:

"SEASON of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run" (1-4)

5. Although the poem is primarily descriptive, what attitude toward transience and passing beauty is implicit in it?

It's okay to get old.

The Destruction of Sennacherib

Lord Byron

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!

2. This poem is based on this biblical story. How do the rhythm and imagery of the poem convey the spirit of the biblical account?

The imagery, specifically that detailing the massive size of the Assyrian forces ("And the sheen of their spears..." (3), for example), plays up the idea that only some divine intervention could possible have prevented the destruction of this city. The description of the sudden death of the Assyrian forces, starting with line nine, also contributes to the sense that this victory was an act of God.

3. Identify significant images in the poem. How do they deepen and enrich the poem's meaning?

"The Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold" (1)--emphasizes the fact that this is a God's "flock" being attacked. Contrasting that which is vicious with that which is gentle.

"And the might of the Gentile, unsmote by the sword,
Hath melted like snow in the glance of the Lord!" (23-24)--if the sudden death of a couple thousand men didn't get the point across to you, this should--God is powerful and protects his flock.

The world is too much with us

William Wordsworth

The world is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers:
Little we see in Nature that is ours;
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!
The Sea that bares her bosom to the moon;
The winds that will be howling at all hours,
And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers;
For this, for everything, we are out of tune;
It moves us not.--Great God! I’d rather be
A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn;
So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,
Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;
Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;
Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn.

1. What two relevant denotations has "wreathed" (14)?

According to the internet, "wreathed" can mean that something is something shaped like a wreath, or adorned with a wreath.

2. Explain why the poet's words are more effective than these possible alternatives: earth for "world" (1); selling and buying for "getting and spending" (2); dozing for "sleeping" (5); posies for "flowers" (7); nourished for "suckled" (10); visions for "glimpses" (12); sound for "blow" (14).

Wordsworth word choices are more natural, which helps with the over all theme and feel of the poem. I think these words are more "relaxed," and some of them (like earth, flowers, and getting and spending) are broader than their alternatives--the images they bring to mind can vary greatly.

4. Is "Great God!" (9) a vocative of an expletive? Or something of both?

I'd say it's a little bit of both. The poet is almost telling God that he'd rather be a nature-appreciating pagan than the some-sort-of Christian he apparently is, but he's also frustrated and expaserated.

5. State the theme of the poem in a sentence.

Humanity, in its effort to evolve, expand, and become greater, has failed to stop and smell the roses.