Transcript The Wise Old Owl by Edward Hersey Richards

Poetry Vocabulary #1
1.
Narrative poem: a poem that tells a story and often contains characters, dialogue,
setting, and plot.
2.
Lyric poem: a short poem that expresses the thoughts and feelings of a single
speaker.
3.
Alliteration: the repetition of initial consonants.
4.
Hyperbole: exaggeration for emphasis.
5.
Imagery: words or phrases that appeal to the senses of sight, hearing, touch, taste,
and smell and help create mental images.
6.
Metaphor: a figure of speech in which a word or phrase used to describe one thing
is used to describe a different thing: a resemblance is implied.
7.
Simile: a figure of speech that directly compares two or more unlike things by using
the words like or as
Poetry Vocabulary #1
8.
Rhyme: two or more words that end with the same or similar sounds.
9.
Rhyme scheme: the pattern of rhymes used in a poem, usually described by using letters
of the alphabet to represent each rhyme (e.g. AABBA)
10.
Rhythm: a pattern of sound created by the arrangement of stressed and unstressed
syllables in words
11.
Free Verse: a poem that does not have a regular pattern of rhythm.
12.
Line: a unit of poetry signaled by a visual or typographic break.
13.
Stanza: a group of lines that form a section of a poem; stanzas often share a common
pattern of meter, rhyme, and number of lines
14.
Quatrain: a four-line stanza or poem.
15.
Couplet: a pair of consecutive lines that rhyme.
Poetry Vocabulary #2
1.
Allusion: a reference to a historical event or custom, a work of literature or art, or a
well-known person or place.
2.
Assonance: the repetition of vowel sounds within words.
3.
Consonance: the repetition of consonant sounds within and at the ends of words.
4.
Elegy: a poem that mourns a person’s death.
5.
Internal rhyme: rhyme that occurs within a line of verse.
6.
Slant rhyme: rhyme that is not exact, e.g., “heart” and “car” (also known as “offrhyme”)
7.
Catalog: a list of people, things, or attributes.
8.
Onomatopoeia: the technique of using words that imitate sounds.
9.
Parallelism: the use of words, phrases, or sentences that have a similar grammatical
structure.
10. Repetition: the repeating of a sound, word, phrase, or line
11. Speaker: the person or object whose voice is heard in the poem; the speaker of a
poem is not necessarily the poet
12. Symbol: a person, place, object, or action that stands for something beyond itself
13. Personification: a figure of speech in which an animal, object, or idea is given human
characteristics.
A wise old owl sat on an oak,
The more he saw the less he spoke;
The less he spoke the more he heard;
Why aren’t we like that wise old bird?
The Wise Old Owl
• Author Information: Edward Hersey Richards
(1874-1957)
• Content:
– Praises the virtue of silence
– Invites readers to: not always be speaking, sharpen
listening skills, & increase powers of observation.
•
•
•
•
•
•
Rhyme scheme: AABB
Repetition: more, less
Alliteration: why, we, wise
Assonance: old, owl, on, oak
Consonance: old, owl
Personification: the owl speaks
He clasps the crag with crooked hands;
Close to the sun in lonely lands,
Ring’d with the azure world, he stands.
The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls;
He watches from his mountain walls,
And like a thunderbolt he falls.
The Eagle
• Author Information: Alfred Lord Tennyson(18091892)
• Content:
– Describes a majestic eagle both from ground level
and from the eagle’s vantage point
• Vocabulary:
– Clasps: grasps, holds tightly
– Crag: steep, jagged rock that forms rugged cliffs
– Ringed: encircled, surrounded
– Azure: blue
– Thunderbolt: a flash of lightening
• Rhyme scheme:
The Eagle
– AAA BBB
• Alliteration:
– clasps, crag, crooked
• Consonance:
– sun, lonely, lands
• Simile:
– like a thunderbolt he falls
• Imagery:
– wrinkled sea appeals to the senses of touch and sight
• Personification:
– the eagle has hands
I shot an arrow into the air,
It fell to earth, I knew not where;
For, so swiftly it flew, the sight
Could not follow it in its flight.
I breathed a song into the air,
It fell to earth, I knew not where;
For who has sight so keen and strong,
That it can follow the flight of song?
Long, long afterward, in an oak
I found the arrow, still unbroke;
And the song, from beginning to end,
I found again in the heart of a friend.
The Arrow and the Song
• Author Information: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow(18071882)
– A scholar who knew 10 languages
– Harvard professor
– A beloved poet who wrote many famous poems: “The Song of
Hiawatha,” “Evangeline,” “The Courtship of Miles Standish,”
“There Was a Little Girl,” “Paul Revere’s Ride”
• Content:
– This lyric poem compares shooting an arrow and singing a
song. According to the speaker, both are lost in the air but are
found again; the arrow is found in an oak tree, and the song is
“found” in the heart of a friend.
• Vocabulary:
– Swiftly: quickly
– Keen: sharp, acute
The Arrow and the Song
• Rhyme scheme:
– Couplets: AABB AACC DDEE
• Repetition:
– It fell to earth, I knew not where
• Consonance:
– Swiftly, flew
• Assonance
– Not, follow
• Alliteration:
– Follow, flight
• Symbol:
– The lost arrow and the song symbolize something that we
believe has been lost and can never be regained
What is the opposite of riot?
It’s lots of people keeping quiet.
…
What is the opposite of two?
A lonely me, a lonely you.
…
The opposite of doughnut? Wait
A minute while I meditate.
This isn’t easy. Ah, I’ve found it!
A cookie with a hole around it.
…
The opposite of a cloud could be
A white reflection in the sea,
Or a huge blueness in the air,
Caused by a cloud’s not being there.
…
The opposite of opposite?
That’s much too difficult. I quit.
From Opposites
• Author Information: Richard Wilbur (Born in 1921- still
living)
– Won a Pulitzer Prize for Things of This World (1956) and New
and Collected Poems (1988)
– Recipient of numerous awards and honors.
– Served as poet laureate of the United States
– Published his first poem at 8 years old
• This poem is an excerpt from a longer work entitled
Opposites.
• Content:
– This humorous lyric poem poses a series of questions and
answers about opposites.
• Vocabulary:
– Riot: a disturbance created by a large number of people
– Meditate: think
From Opposites
• Rhyme - couplets
– Riot, quiet; two, you
• Repetition:
– Lonely, opposite
• Alliteration:
– Minute, mediate
• Assonance:
– Huge, blueness
• Consonance
– What, opposite, riot
• Imagery:
– White reflection on the sea
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim
Because it was grassy and wanted wear,
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I marked the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I,
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
The Road not Taken
• Author Information: Robert Frost (1874-1963)
– An American poet who lived on a farm in New Hampshire.
– Wrote about the sights and sounds of rural life in New
England
– Won FOUR Pulitzer Prizes for his poetry
– Read a poem at the inauguration of President John F. Kennedy
in 1961
• Content:
– This lyric poem, the speaker stands by a fork in the road and
thinks about which path to take. The speaker’s dilemma
symbolizes the many choices one makes in life.
• Vocabulary:
– Diverged: branched out, went in different directions
– Trodden: walked on
– Hence: from now
The Road not Taken
• Rhyme scheme:
– ABAAB CDCCD …
• Repetition:
– Two roads diverged
• Alliteration:
– First, for
• Consonance:
– Yellow, wood
• Symbol:
– The roads symbolize the different paths people take in life
• Imagery:
– Yellow wood appeals to the sense of sight and grassy appeals
to the sense of touch
The Snowstorm - Vocabulary
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
o'er: over
alight: come down and settle
whited: made white
courier: messenger
radiant: giving off heat and light
tumultuous: noisy, disorderly
masonry: stonework
quarry: an open pit from which stone is obtained by cutting,
digging, or blasting
evermore: forever
furnished: supplied
artificer: skilled worker
bastions: projecting parts of a fortification
projected: pushed outward
windward: moved in the directions where the wind blows
stake: fence pole
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.
21.
22.
23.
24.
25.
26.
27.
28.
29.
30.
31.
myriad: many
savage: wild, fierce
naught: nothing
proportion: balance or agreeable relation of parts within a whole
coop: shelter for chickens
kennel: shelter for dogs
Parian wreaths: wreaths that look like they are made of white
marble, quarried on the Greek island of Paros
invests: covers completely
maugre: in spite of
tapering: narrowed at one end
turret: a little tower
overtops: rises over
retiring: quitting work
astonished: very surprised
mimic: copy closely
frolic: playful
Announced by all the trumpets of the sky,
Speeding, the myriad-handed, his wild work
Arrives the snow, and, driving o'er the fields,
So fanciful, so savage, nought cares he
Seems nowhere to alight: the whited air
For number or proportion. Mockingly,
Hides hills and woods, the river, and the
heaven,
On coop or kennel he hangs Parian wreaths;
And veils the farmhouse at the garden's end.
Fills up the farmer's lane from wall to wall,
The sled and traveler stopped, the courier's
feet
Maugre the farmer sighs; and, at the gate,
Delayed, all friends shut out, the
housemates sit
Around the radiant fireplace, enclosed
In a tumultuous privacy of storm.
Come see the northwind's masonry.
Out of an unseen quarry evermore
Furnished with tile, the fierce artificer
Curves his white bastions with projected roof
Round every wayward stake, or tree, or door.
A swan-like form invests the hidden thorn;
A tapering turret overtops the work.
And when his hours are numbered, and the
world
Is all his own, retiring, as he were not,
Leaves, when the sun appears, astonished Art
To mimic in slow structures, stone by stone,
Built in an age, the mad wind's night-work,
The frolic architecture of snow.
Announced by all the trumpets of the sky,
Arrives the snow, and, driving o'er the fields,
Seems nowhere to alight: the whited air
Hides hills and woods, the river, and the
heaven,
And veils the farmhouse at the garden's end.
The sled and traveler stopped, the courier's
feet
Delayed, all friends shut out, the
housemates sit
Around the radiant fireplace, enclosed
In a tumultuous privacy of storm.
Come see the northwind's masonry.
Out of an unseen quarry evermore
Furnished with tile, the fierce artificer
Curves his white bastions with projected
roof
Round every wayward stake, or tree, or
door.
Speeding, the myriad-handed, his wild work
So fanciful, so savage, nought cares he
For number or proportion. Mockingly,
On coop or kennel he hangs Parian wreaths;
A swan-like form invests the hidden thorn;
Fills up the farmer's lane from wall to wall,
Maugre the farmer sighs; and, at the gate,
A tapering turret overtops the work.
And when his hours are numbered, and the
world
Is all his own, retiring, as he were not,
Leaves, when the sun appears, astonished
Art
To mimic in slow structures, stone by stone,
Built in an age, the mad wind's night-work,
The frolic architecture of snow.
The Snowstorm
• Author Information: Ralph Waldo Emerson (18031882)
– Born in Boston, Massachusetts
– Lecture, philosopher, and writer
– Moved to Concord in 1834 and formed the influential
Transcendental Club
– Wrote Nature, Essays, The Conduce of Live, and Concord
Hymn
• Content:
– Portrays what happens to the landscape during a
powerful New England snowstorm
• Vocabulary:
– See supplemental worksheet
• Rhyme:
The Snowstorm
– Evermore, door
• Repetition:
– Farmers, snow
• Alliteration:
– Tapering, turret
• Assonance:
– Arrives, driving
• Consonance:
– Tapering, turrets, overtops, work
• Personification:
– The storm is a mason, a carpenter, and an architect
• Metaphor:
– The storm’s creations are compared to a whole new world created by an
architect
• Imagery:
– Radiant fireplace appeals to the sense of touch, and whited air appeals to
the sense of sight
I hear America singing, the varied carols I hear,
Those of mechanics, each one singing his as it should be
blithe and strong,
The carpenter singing his as he measures his plank or beam,
The mason singing his as he makes ready for work, or leaves
off work,
The boatman singing what belongs to him in his boat, the
deck- hand singing on the steamboat deck,
The shoemaker singing as he sits on his bench, the hatter
singing as he stands,
The woodcutter's song, the ploughboy's on his way in the
morning, or at noon intermission or at sundown,
The delicious singing of the mother, or of the young wife at
work, or of the girl sewing or washing,
Each singing what belongs to him or her and to none else,
The day what belongs to the day—at night the party of young
fellows, robust, friendly,
Singing with open mouths their strong melodious songs.
I Hear America Singing
1. Author Information: Walt Whitman (1819-1892)
a. One of the greatest American poets. Worked as a carpenter, a printer, a
teacher, a journalist, and a nurse during the Civil War.
b. Credited for bringing free verse, or poetry without a regular pattern of
rhythm or rhyme to American audiences.
c. Self-published the first of nine editions of his experimental masterpiece
Leaves of Grass in 1855.
2. Content:
a. Free verse lyric poem which celebrates the energy and vitality of mid-19thcentury America.
3. Vocabulary:
a. varied: different
b. carols: songs
c. blithe: carefree and lighthearted
d. plank: a piece of lumber or wood
e. beam: a long piece of timber used as support in construction
f. mason: a person who builds or works with stone or brick
g. hatter: a person who makes or repairs hats
h. ploughboy: a boy who guides a team of animals in plowing
i. intermission: a break from work
j. robust: healthy, vital
k. melodious: pleasant to listen to
I Hear America Singing
4.
Rhyme:
a. free verse
5. Catalog:
a. lists of people
6. Repetition:
a. singing
7. Parallelism:
a. The carpenter singing his; The mason singing his
8. Alliteration:
a. singing, sits
9. Metaphor:
a. singing represents the different kinds of work that people do
10.Consonance:
a. hear, America, varied, carols
11.Imagery:
a. Strong melodious songs appeals to the sense of hearing
I, too, sing America.
I am the darker brother.
They send me to eat in the kitchen
When company comes,
But I laugh,
And eat well,
And grow strong.
Tomorrow,
I’ll be at the table
When company comes.
Nobody’ll dare
Say to me,
“Eat in the kitchen,”
Then.
Besides,
They’ll see how beautiful I am
And be ashamed --I, too, am America
I, Too
1. Author Information: Langston Hughes (1902-1967)
a. African-American poet
b. One of the most influential writers of the Harlem
Renaissance of the 1920s
2. Content: Lyric poem conveys the speaker's feelings about
African-Americans being treated as second-class citizens
and his or her hope that the situation will change.
3. Rhyme: free verse
4. Repetition:
a. I, too
b. When company comes
5. Symbol: The kitchen stands for the second-class status of
African Americans
6. Consonance: darker, brother
Once riding in old Baltimore,
Heart-filled, head-filled with glee,
I saw a Baltimorean
Keep looking straight at me.
Now I was eight and very small,
And he was no whit bigger,
And so I smiled, but he stuck out
His tongue, and called me, “Nigger.”
I saw the whole of Baltimore
From May until December;
Of all the things that happened there
That’s all that I remember.
Incident
1. Author Information: Countee Cullen (1903-1946)
a. African-American poet
b. Began writing poetry when he was 14 years old.
c. Like Langston Hughes, Cullen became a leader of the Harlem
Renaissance.
d. A brilliant scholar. Earned his master's degree from Harvard
University and later taught in New York City public schools.
e. His first volume of poetry, Color, was published in 1925.
2. Content: This lyric poem tells about an incident of racial
discrimination the speaker experienced as an eight-year-old
child in Baltimore, Maryland.
3. Vocabulary:
a. glee: joy
b. Baltimorean: a person who lives in the city of Baltimore
c. whit: the least or smallest bit
Incident
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
Rhyme Scheme:
ABCB
Repetition:
filled
Rhythm: Now I was EIGHT and VERy SMALL
Quatrains
Alliteration:
staring, straight
Consonance:
whole, Baltimore
10. Assonance:
whit, bigger
• ASSIGNMENT: Answer the following questions using complete
sentences.
1. Have you ever experienced discrimination or bullying? How do these
experiences make you feel?
2. How do your emotions concerning an event influence your memory?
Some of the girls are playing jacks.
Some are playing ball.
But small Narcissa is not playing
Anything at all.
Small Narcissa sits upon
A brick in her back yard
And looks at tiger-lilies,
And shakes her pigtails hard.
First she is an ancient queen
In pomp and purple veil.
Soon she is a singing wind.
And, next, a nightingale.
How fine to be Narcissa,
A-changing like all that!
While sitting still, as still, as still
As anyone ever sat!
Narcissa
1. Author Information: Gwendolyn Brooks (1917-2000)
a. Won the Pulitzer Prize for Annie Allen
b.First African-American to win a Pulitzer Prize.
c. Poems often focus on the experiences of urban
African Americans.
2. Content: This narrative poem tells the story of a quiet
little girl whose vivid imagination transforms and
entertains her while other children play games.
3. Vocabulary:
a. pomp: magnificent display, splendor
b.nightingale: a brownish European songbird known
for singing its beautiful song at night
c. narcissism: a fixation with oneself
4. Allusion: Narcissa alludes to the Greek
myth about Narcissus
5. Rhyme Scheme: ABCB
6. Alliteration: brick, black
7. Consonance: an, ancient, queen
8. Metaphor: Narcissa is compared to an
ancient queen, a singing wind, and a
nightingale
9. Repetition: still
10.Imagery: purple veil appeals to the sense of
sight, and singing wind appeals to the sense
of hearing
Emily Dickinson
(1830-1886)
1. Spent nearly all of her life in the small New England town of
Amherst, Massachusetts.
2. During her lifetime, Dickinson wrote nearly 1,800 poems, but
fewer than 12 of her poems were published.
3. She never married, seldom left her house, and had few
visitors.
4. After Dickinson's death, her family found 40 hand-bound
books of poems she had written.
5. Emily Dickinson once defined poetry this way: “If I read a
book and it makes my whole body so cold no fire can warm
me I know that is poetry. If I feel physically as if the top of
my head were taken off, I know that is poetry. These are the
only way I know it. Is there any other way?”
A Bird came down the Walk—
He did not know I saw—
He bit an Angleworm in halves
And ate the fellow, raw,
He stirred his Velvet Head
Like one in danger, Cautious,
I offered him a Crumb
And he unrolled his feathers
And rowed him softer home—
And then he drank a Dew
From a convenient Grass—
And then hopped sidewise to the Than Oars divide the Ocean,
Wall
Too silver for a seam—
To let a Beetle pass—
Or Butterflies, off Banks of Noon
Leap, plashless as they swim.
He glanced with rapid eyes
That hurried all around—
They looked like frightened Beads,
I thought—
A Bird Came Down the Walk
1. Content: This lyric poem describes the speaker's observations of a
bird as it eats a worm, drinks dew, hops sidewise, looks around
nervously, and then flies away.
2. Vocabulary:
a. angleworm: an earthworm that could be used by an "angler" or
fisherman as bait
b. glanced: looked
c. rapid: quickly moving
d. rowed: moved as if with oars
e. oars: long poles used to row or steer a boat
f. plashless: without splashing
3. Rhyme: saw, raw; grass, pass
4. Slant Rhyme: crumb, home; seam, swim
5. Alliteration: silver, seam
6. Onomatopoeia: plashless
7. Simile: They looked like frightened beads
8. Metaphor: a bird using its wings to fly in the air is
compared to a rower using oars to row a boat on the
ocean
9. Imagery: drank a dew appeals to the sense of taste,
and velvet head appeals to the sense of touch.
I like to see it lap the Miles—
And lick the Valleys up—
And stop to feed itself at
Tanks—
And then—prodigious, step
To fit its Ribs
And crawl between
Complaining all the while
In horrid—hooting stanza—
Then chase itself down Hill—
Around a Pile of Mountains—
And supercilious peer
In Shanties—by the sides of
Roads—
And then a Quarry pare
And neigh like Boanerges—
Then—punctual as a Star—
Stop—docile and omnipotent
At its own stable door—
I like to see it lap the miles
1. Content: This lyric poem compares a train to a more familiar mode of
transportation at the time: the horse
2. Vocabulary:
a. lap: take in, usually a liquid or food
b. Prodigious: enormous
c. supercilious: condescending, arrogant, proud
d. pare: trim
e. Boanerges: a last name meaning "sons of thunder" that Jesus gave
to his apostles James and John
f. prompter: more on time
g. docile: obedient
h. omnipotent: all-powerful
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
slant rhyme: up step; peer, pare
alliteration: horrid, hooting
consonance: prompter, star
assonance: around, mountain
punctuation: dash highlights important words and
breaks up the rhythm, unconventional
capitalization for emphasis
8. extended metaphor: a moving train on its way to a
station is compared to a horse going to its stable
9. simile: neigh like Boanerges
10.onomatopoeia: hooting
11.personification: the train laps, licks, feeds, and
complains
12.allusion: Boanerges is a biblical allusion
 prodigious: enormous;
 supercilious: condescending, arrogant, proud;
 Boanerges: a name Christ gave to the disciples James
and John, meaning "sons of thunder"; also, a loud
preacher or orator;
 docile: obedient, submissive;
 omnipotent: all powerful.
 A bird came down the walk:




He did not know I saw;
He bit an angle-worm in halves
And ate the fellow, raw.
And then he drank a dew
From a convenient grass,
And then hopped sidewise to the wall
To let a beetle pass.
He glanced with rapid eyes
That hurried all abroad,-They looked like frightened beads, I thought;
He stirred his velvet head
Like one in danger; cautious,
I offered him a crumb,
And he unrolled his feathers
And rowed him softer home
Than oars divide the ocean,
Too silver for a seam,
Or butterflies, off banks of noon,
Leap, plashless, as they swim.
I was angry with my friend:
I told my wrath, my wrath did end.
I was angry with my foe:
I told it not, my wrath did grow.
And I watered it in fears,
Night and morning with my tears;
And I sunned it with smiles,
And with soft deceitful wiles.
And it grew both day and night,
Till it bore an apple bright.
And my foe beheld it shine.
And he knew that it was mine,
And into my garden stole
When the night had veiled the pole;
In the morning glad I see
My foe outstretched beneath the tree.
A Poison Tree
1. Author Information: William Blake (1757-1827)
a. Born in London, England.
b. Attended drawing school when he was 10 and began writing
poetry at age 12.
c. He earned a living as an engraver and illustrator, and he often
illustrated his own poems.
d. Blake's works of poetry include Songs of Innocence (1789) and
Songs of Experience (1794).
2. Content: This lyric poem describes what happens to the speaker's
anger when it is either expressed (let out) or suppressed (kept in).
As the speaker's suppressed anger grows, it poisons both the
speaker and the object of his or her anger.
3.
Vocabulary:
a. wrath: anger
b. foe: enemy
c. sunned: warmed
d. deceitful: dishonest
e. wiles: sneaky ways of doing things
f. bore: yielded, produced
g. veiled the pole: shadowed one side of the earth
4. Rhyme Scheme: AABB CCDD
5. stanzas: quatrains
6. Alliteration: sunned, smiles
7. repetition: wrath, foe
8. imagery: watered it in fears appeals to the sense of touch, and apple bright appeals to
the sense of sight
9. extended metaphor: the speaker's festering anger is compared to a growing, living tree
that eventually poisons all whom it touches
Tyger! Tyger! 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 sieze the fire?
When the stars threw down their
spears,
And watered heaven with their
tears,
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the Lamb make
thee?
Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
And what shoulder, & what art.
In the forests of the night,
Could twist the sinews of thy heart? What immortal hand or eye
And when thy heart began to beat, Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?
What dread hand? & 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?
The Tyger
1. Content: The speaker of this lyric poem ponders why a benevolent (good &
loving) God would have created such a fearful, violent creature as the tiger.
2. Vocabulary
a. tyger: tiger
b. immortal: never dying, godly
c. frame: put together, construct
d. symmetry: balance or agreeable relation of parts within a whole
e. deeps: oceans
f. thine: old way of saying "your"
g. aspire: aim for
h. seize: grab
i. sinews: tendons
j. thy: old way of saying "your"
k. dread: casting terror or fear
l. anvil: a smooth, flat block of steel or iron on which metals are shaped by hammering
m. grasp: a firm hold or grip
n. clasp: hold tightly
3.
Rhyme scheme: AABB
4. stanzas: quatrains
5. repetition: dare, Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
6. alliteration: burning bright
7. consonance: twist, sinews
8. imagery: fire of thine appeals to the sense of sight, and
watered heaven with their tears appeals to the sense of touch
9. symbol: the tiger symbolizes violence and horror
10.metaphor: God is compared to a blacksmith, and his creative
processes are compared to those of a skilled artisan
11.personification: the stars throw down their spears and cry
O Captain! My Captain! ~ By Walt Whitman
O Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done,
The ship has weather’d every rack, the prize we
sought is won,
The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all
exulting,
While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim
and daring;
But O heart! heart! heart!
O the bleeding drops of red,
Where on the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.
My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and
still,
My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor
will,
The ship is anchor’d safe and sound, its voyage
closed and done,
From fearful trip the victor ship comes in with object
won;
O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells;
Exult O shores, and ring O bells!
Rise up—for you the flag is flung—for you the bugle
trills,
But I with mournful tread,
For you bouquets and ribbon’d wreaths—for you the
Walk the deck my Captain lies,
shores a-crowding,
Fallen cold and dead.
For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces
turning;
Here Captain! dear father!
The arm beneath your head!
It is some dream that on the deck,
You’ve fallen cold and dead.
O Captain! My Captain!
1.
Author: Walt Whitman
2.
Content: This elegy mourns the death of President Abraham Lincoln in 1865.
3.
Background: This poem was written after President Abraham Lincoln was assassinated by John
Wilkes Booth on April 14, 1865, just five days after the end of the Civil War. Booth, who
sympathized with the Confederate cause, shot Lincoln while the president and his wife were
attending a play at Ford's Theater in Washington D.C.
4.
Vocabulary:
a. weather'd: survived
b. rack: a mass of high, wind-driven clouds or a storm
c. exulting: feeling joyful
d. keel: the bottom of a ship, often weighted for balance
e. vessel: ship
f. trills: makes a fluttering sound
g. swaying mass: a crowd of people gently moving back and forth
h. victor: the winner in a struggle or contest
i.
object: goal
j.
mournful: sad
k. tread: step
5.
rhyme scheme: AABBCDED
6. Internal rhyme: The port is near, the bells I hear
7. repetition: fallen cold and dead, rise up
8. alliteration: safe, sound
9. imagery: bugle trills appeals to the sense of hearing
10.consonance: while, follow, keel, vessel
11.assonance: lips, still
12.Extended metaphor: Abraham Lincoln is compared to the
captain of the ship; he leads America through difficult times
just as a captain pilots a ship through stormy seas
13.symbol: the storm tossed ship coming safely into port
symbolizes the United States coming through the Civil War
intact
14.Onomatopoeia: trills
Casey at the Bat ~ By Ernest Thayer
The Outlook wasn't brilliant for the Mudville nine that
day:
The score stood four to two, with but one inning more
to play.
And then when Cooney died at first, and Barrows did
the same,
A sickly silence fell upon the patrons of the game.
A straggling few got up to go in deep despair. The rest
Clung to that hope which springs eternal in the human
breast;
They thought, if only Casey could get but a whack at
that We'd put up even money, now, with Casey at the bat.
But Flynn preceded Casey, as did also Jimmy Blake,
And the former was a lulu and the latter was a cake;
So upon that stricken multitude grim melancholy sat,
For there seemed but little chance of Casey's getting to
the bat.
But Flynn let drive a single, to the wonderment of all,
And Blake, the much despised, tore the cover off the
ball;
And when the dust had lifted, and the men saw what
had occurred,
There was Jimmy safe at second and Flynn a-hugging
third.
Then from 5,000 throats and more there rose a lusty
yell;
It rumbled through the valley, it rattled in the dell;
It knocked upon the mountain and recoiled upon the
flat,
For Casey, mighty Casey, was advancing to the bat.
There was ease in Casey's manner as he stepped into his
place;
There was pride in Casey's bearing and a smile on
Casey's face.
And when, responding to the cheers, he lightly doffed
his hat,
No stranger in the crowd could doubt 'twas Casey at the
bat.
Ten thousand eyes were on him as he rubbed his hands
But Casey still ignored it, and the umpire said, "Strike
with dirt;
two."
Five thousand tongues applauded when he wiped them on
his shirt.
"Fraud!" cried the maddened thousands, and echo
Then while the writhing pitcher ground the ball into his
answered fraud;
hip,
But one scornful look from Casey and the audience was
Defiance gleamed in Casey's eye, a sneer curled Casey's lip. awed.
They saw his face grow stern and cold, they saw his
muscles strain,
And now the leather-covered sphere came hurtling
through the air,
And they knew that Casey wouldn't let that ball go by
And Casey stood a-watching it in haughty grandeur there. again.
Close by the sturdy batsman the ball unheeded sped"That ain't my style," said Casey. "Strike one," the umpire The sneer is gone from Casey's lip, his teeth are clenched in
hate;
said.
He pounds with cruel violence his bat upon the plate.
And now the pitcher holds the ball, and now he lets it go,
From the benches, black with people, there went up a
muffled roar,
And now the air is shattered by the force of Casey's blow.
Like the beating of the storm-waves on a stern and distant
shore.
Oh, somewhere in this favored land the sun is shining
"Kill him! Kill the umpire!" shouted someone on the stand; bright;
And its likely they'd a-killed him had not Casey raised his The band is playing somewhere, and somewhere hearts
hand.
are light,
And somewhere men are laughing, and somewhere
children shout;
With a smile of Christian charity great Casey's visage
shone;
But there is no joy in Mudville - mighty Casey has struck
out.
He stilled the rising tumult; he bade the game go on;
He signaled to the pitcher, and once more the spheroid
Casey at the Bat
1. Author Information: Ernest Lawrence Thayer (1863-
1904)
a. He was the son of a prosperous mill owner, graduated from
Harvard University.
b. Rather than enter the family business, he became a
journalist and took a job writing for the San Francisco
Examiner where he composed a poem for each Sunday
edition.
2. Content: This well-known narrative poem tells the
story of a small-town baseball hero who is expected to
win the game in the final inning.
3.
k. melancholy: sadness
Vocabulary:
a. outlook:
expectation
for
the
l. recoiled: returned, bounced back
m. bearing: the way in which a
future
b. died: struck out
person
c. patrons: supporters, fans
himself
carries
or
d. straggling: straying
n. doffed: tipped
e. despair: hopeless
o. haughty: proud
f. get a whack: make an attempt to
p. grandeur: magnificence
conducts
q. unheeded: not paid attention to
get to the plate
g. put up even money: make a bet
r. visage: face
that the Mudville team would
s. bade: directed
win
t. spheroid: round object, in this
case a baseball
h. preceded: came before
i. stricken:
overwhelmed
painful emotion
j. multitude: crowd
by
u. fraud: act of dishonesty
4.
Rhyme scheme: AABB CCDD
5. Internal Rhyme: score, four, more
6. Stanzas: quatrains
7. Simile: Like the beating of the storm waves
8. Imagery: a lusty yell appeals to the sense of hearing, rubbed
his hands with dirt appeals to the sense of touch, and leathercovered sphere appeals to the sense of touch and sight
9. Repetition: mighty Casey
10.Personification: tongues applauded
11.Characters: Casey, Cooney, Barrows, Flynn, Jimmy Blake, the
pitcher, the umpire, & the fans
12.Dialogue: "Kill the umpire!"
13.Setting: baseball diamond in Mudville
`Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.
One, two! One, two! And through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back.
"Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!"
"And, has thou slain the Jabberwock?
Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!'
He chortled in his joy.
He took his vorpal sword in hand:
Long time the manxome foe he sought -So rested he by the Tumtum tree,
And stood awhile in thought.
`Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.
And, as in uffish thought he stood,
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came!
Jabberwocky
1. Author Information: Lewis Carroll (1832-1898)
a. Born Charles Lutwidge Dodgson in England.
b. A mathematics professor at Oxford Univeristy, he also wrote the children's novels
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865) and Through the Looking Glass (1871).
2. Background:
a. This poem comes from Through the Looking Glass in the "Humpty Dumpty"
chapter. The main character, Alice, finds a book in which the poem, "Jabberwocky"
appears in mirror writing. After she holds the book up to a mirror, she is able to
read the poem, but she still doesn't understand it.
3. Content: This nonsense narrative poem challenges the reader to decipher the made-up
words and find out about the mysterious creature known as the Jabberwock. In the
poem, a father warns his son about the Jabberwock and other potential dangers out in
the world.
4.
Vocabulary:
a. twas: it was
b. hast: an old way of saying "have"
c. thou: an old way of saying "you"
d. slain: killed
e. chortled: laughed throatily
5. Nonsense words: brillig, slithy, toves, gimble
6. Rhyme Scheme: ABAB
7. Repetition: Twas brillig, and the slithy toves; and the mome raths outgrabe
8. Consonance: sword in hand; snicker-snack
9. Assonance: two, through
10. Onomatopoeia: snicker-snack
11. Imagery: jaws that bite appeals to the sense of touch, and eyes of flame appeals to the
sense of sight
12. Internal Rhyme: jaws, claws
13. Stanzas: quatrains
14. Dialogue: "Beware the Jabberwock"
15. Characters: father, son
Up from the meadows rich with down,
corn,
Horse and foot, into Frederick
Clear in the cool September
town.
morn,
The clustered spires of
Frederick stand
Green-walled by the hills of
Maryland.
Round about them orchards
sweep,
Apple and peach tree fruited
deep,
Fair as the garden of the Lord
To the eyes of the famished
rebel horde,
Forty flags with their silver
stars,
Forty flags with their crimson
bars,
To show that one heart was loyal
yet,
Up the street came the rebel
tread,
Stonewall Jackson riding ahead.
Under his slouched hat left and
right
He glanced; the old flag met his
sight.
Flapped in the morning wind:
the sun
Of noon looked down, and saw
not one.
'Halt!' - the dust-brown ranks
stood fast.
Up rose old Barbara Frietchie
'Fire!' - out blazed the riflethen,
blast.
Bowed with her fourscore years
and ten;
On that pleasant morn of the
early fall
When Lee marched over the
mountain-wall;
Bravest of all in Frederick town,
She took up the flag the men
hauled down;
Over the mountains winding
In her attic window the staff she
set,
It shivered the window, pane and
Fall, for her sake, on Stonewalls'
sash;
bier.
'Who touches a hair of yon gray
It rent the banner with seam and head
gash.
Dies like a dog! March on! he said. Over Barbara Frietchie's grave,
Flag of Freedom and Union, wave!
Quick, as it fell, from the broken All day long through Frederick
staff
street
Peace and order and beauty draw
Dame Barbara snatched the silken Sounded the tread of marching
Round they symbol of light and
scarf.
feet:
law;
She leaned far out on the window- All day long that free flag tost
sill,
Over the heads of the rebel host.
And shook it forth with a royal
will.
Ever its torn folds rose and fell
'Shoot, if you must, this old gray On the loyal winds that loved it
well;
head,
But spare your country's flag,' she
said.
And through the hill-gaps sunset
light
Shone over it with a warm goodA shade of sadness, a blush of
night.
shame,
Over the face of the leader came;
Barbara Frietchie's work is o'er,
And the Rebel rides on his raids
The nobler nature within him
nor more.
stirred
To life at that woman's deed and
word;
Honor to her! and let a tear
And ever the stars above look
down
On thy stars below in Frederick
town!
Barbara Frietchie
1. Author Information: John Greenleaf Whittier (1807-1892)
a. Born in Massachusetts.
b. A self-educated Quaker, he was active in the cause against slavery.
c. Whittier published his first book, Legends of New England in Prose and Verse,
in 1831.
d. His most popular book, Snow-Bound, was published in 1866.
2. Background:
a. The Civil War inspired Whittier to write this poem. Born in 1766 in Lancaster,
Pennsylvania, Barbara Frietchie was a 96 year-old-widow when the events
described in the poem took place in 1862. According to the story, Frietchie
patriotically displayed a Union flag as General Robert E. Lee and Thomas J.
"Stonewall" Jackson led 40,000 Confederate soldiers into Frederick, Maryland,
on September 17, 1862.
3. Content: This narrative poem tells the story of Barbara Frietchie, a brave woman
who defiantly flew a Union flag during the Civil War as Confederate troops
marched into her town.
4.
Vocabulary:
k. hauled: pulled or dragged
a. morn: morning
l. staff: the pole that holds a flag
b. clustered:
gathered
closely
n. slouched hat: a soft hat with a
together
c. spires
m. tread: step
tall:
pointed
towers,
especially of churches
d. Frederick: a city in Maryland,
west of Baltimore
wide brim
o. dust-brown ranks: Confederate
soldiers
wearing
brown
uniforms
e. fruited: filled with fruit
p. shivered: broke into pieces
f. the garden of the Lord: the
q. sash: the frame in which the
garden of Eden, Paradise, where
Adam and Eve first lived
glass panes of a window are set
r. rent: tore
g. famished: very hungry
s. yon: over there
h. rebel: Confederate
t. o'er: over
i. horde: crowd
u. bier: a coffin and its stand
j. fourscore years and ten: 90 (a
score equals 20, so 4 x 20 = 80)
5. Rhyme Scheme: AA BB CC
6. Repetition: morn, flag
7. Alliteration: forty, flags; silver, stars
8. Consonance: clustered spires of Frederick
9. Assonance: rose, old
10. Imagery:
a. forty flags with their crimson appeals to the sense of sight
b. silken scarf appeals to the sense of touch
c. the tread of marching feet appeals to the sense of hearing
11. Symbol: the flag represents the Union
12. Stanzas: couplets
13. metaphor: the flag is compared to a silk scarf
14. Simile: Fair as the garden of the Lord
15. Dialogue: "Shoot, if you must, this old gray head..."
16. Characters: Barbara Frietchie, Stonewall Jackson
17. Setting: Frederick, Maryland, on a September morning during the Civil War
7.
biblical allusions:
1.
Coming of the Lord refers to the prophesied return of Jesus Christ at
the Last Judgment
2.
His terrible swift sword refers to the sword with which Christ will
separate the just from the sinners
3.
His righteous sentence refers to the Lord's judgment on those who
have not followed the righteous path
4.
sounded forth the trumpet refers to the trumpet that will call humans
to Judgment Day
5.
Lilies refers to a Christian symbol of innocence and purity
6.
Christ was born across the sea refers to Jesus being born in
Bethlehem
7.
He died to make men holy refers to Jesus sacrificing his own life to
take away the world's sins
The Battle Hymn of the Republic
Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Let the Hero, born of woman, crush the serpent
Lord:
with his heel,
He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of
Since God is marching on.”
wrath are stored;
He hath loosed the fateful lightening of His terrible He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never
swift sword:
call retreat;
His truth is marching on.
He is sifting out the hearts of men before His
judgment seat:
I have seen Him in the watch-fires of a hundred
Oh, be swift, my soul, to answer Him! Be jubilant,
circling camps,
my feet!
They have builded Him an altar in the evening dews
Our God is marching on.
and damps;
I can read His righteous sentence by the dim and In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the
flaring lamps:
sea,
His day is marching on.
With a glory in his bosom that transfigures you and
me:
I have read a fiery gospel writ in burnished rows of As he died to make men holy, let us die to make
steel:
men free,
“As ye deal with my contemners, so with you my
While God is marching on.
grace shall deal;
The Battle Hymn of the Republic
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3jRnL6fRdcc
1. Author Information: Julia Ward Howe(1819-1910)
a. American poet and reformer who was active in the antislavery and
women’s rights movements. She helped her husband, Samuel Gridly
Howe, edit the Boston antislavery newspaper Commonwealth. Howe also
wrote poetry, plays, and articles.
2. Background: Written at the height of the Civil War, this poem was inspired by
a visit to a Union army camp near Washington, D.C. After a picnic with
friends, Howe wrote the words in 1861 while staying at the Hotel Willard in
Washington. First published in the Atlantic Monthly in February 1862, the
poem was set to the tune of the folk song “John Brown’s Body” and became
popular as a marching song for the Union troops.
3. Content: This poem is a plea to end slavery on the grounds that it is morally
wrong and has enraged God.
4.
Vocabulary:
1.
hymn: a song of praise or thanksgiving to God
2. mine: my
3. trampling: beating down with the feet
4. vintage: wine
5. loosed: set free, released
6. watch-fires: fires kept burning at night by a guard
7. circling: shaped like a circle
8. damps: humid air
9. righteous: moral, without guilt or sin
10. sentence: punishment
11. flaring: flaming up with a bright, wavering light
12. sifting: examining and sorting carefully
13. transfigures: changes
5.
rhyme scheme: AAAB CCCB
6.
imagery:
1.
2.
watch-fires and dews and damps appeal to the sense of touch
sounded forth the trumpet appeals to the sense of hearing
3. dim and flaring lamps appeals to the sense of sight
7.
alliteration: loosed, lightning
8.
consonance: dim, lamps
9.
assonance: terrible, swift
10. repetition: marching on
11. metaphor: the Lord getting ready to unleash His anger is compared
to the process of turning mature grapes into wine; the Lord's anger
is now fully developed
12. stanzas: quatrains
13. personification: truth marches on
Song of Hiawatha – Hiawatha’s
Childhood
By the shores of Gitche Gumee,
Ewa-yea! my little owlet!"
By the shining Big-Sea-Water,
Many things Nokomis taught him
Stood the wigwam of Nokomis,
Of the stars that shine in heaven;
Daughter of the Moon, Nokomis.
Showed him Ishkoodah, the comet,
Dark behind it rose the forest,
Ishkoodah, with fiery tresses;
Rose the black and gloomy pineShowed the Deathtrees,
Dance of the spirits,
Rose the firs with cones upon them; Warriors with their plumes and warBright before it beat the water,
clubs,
Beat the clear and sunny water,
Flaring far away to northward
Beat the shining Big-Sea-Water.
In the frosty nights of Winter;
There the wrinkled old Nokomis
Showed the broad white road in hea
Nursed the little Hiawatha,
ven,
Rocked him in his linden cradle,
Pathway of the ghosts, the shadows,
Bedded soft in moss and rushes,
Running straight across the heavens,
Safely bound with reindeer sinews; Crowded with the ghosts, the shado
Stilled his fretful wail by saying,
ws.
"Hush! the Naked Bear will hear thee At the door on summer evenings
!"
Sat the little Hiawatha;
Lulled him into slumber, singing,
Heard the whispering of the pine"Ewa-yea! my little owlet!
trees,
Who is this, that lights the wigwam? Heard the lapping of the waters,
With his great eyes lights the wigwa Sounds of music, words of wonder;
m?
'Minne-wawa!" said the pine-trees,
Mudway-aushka!" said the water.
Saw the fire-fly, Wah-wah-taysee,
Flitting through the dusk of evening,
With the twinkle of its candle
Lighting up the brakes and bushes,
And he sang the song of children,
Sang the song Nokomis taught him:
"Wah-wah-taysee, little fire-fly,
Little, flitting, white-fire insect,
Little, dancing, white-fire creature,
Light me with your little candle,
Ere upon my bed I lay me,
Ere in sleep I close my eyelids!"
Author Information
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow: 1807-1882 – Has a connection to Minnesota
via “The Song of Hiawatha”
John Greenleaf Whittier: 1807 – 1892
Emily Dickinson: 1830 – 1886
Ernest Lawrence Thayer: 1863-1940
Alfred Lord Tennyson: 1809-1892 – British Poet
Walt Whitman: 1819-1892
Langston Hughes: 1902-1967 – African American Harlem Renaissance poet
Countee Cullen: 1903-1946 African American Harlem Renaissance Poet
Lewis Carroll: 1832-1898 – Wrote Alice in Wonderland
Gwendolyn Brooks: 1917-2000 – First African American poet to win the
Pulitzer Prize
William Blake: 1757-1827 – English Poet
Robert Frost: 1874-1963 – won FOUR Pulitzer Prizes! Read a poem at the
inauguration of President John F. Kennedy
Ralph Waldo Emerson: 1803-1882 – formed the Transcendental Club
Richard Wilbur: 1921- present – Won a Pulitzer Prize
Edward Hersey Richards: 1874-1957