Poetry Writing Fluencies
English 11B
Poetry 1 – John Donne’s “Song”
GO and catch a falling star,
Get with child a mandrake root,
Tell me where all past years are,
Or who cleft the devil's foot,
Teach me to hear mermaids singing,
Or to keep off envy's stinging,
And find
What wind
Serves to advance an honest mind.
If thou be'st born to strange sights,
Things invisible to see,
Ride ten thousand days and nights,
Till age snow white hairs on thee,
Thou, when thou return'st, wilt tell me,
All strange wonders that befell thee,
And swear,
No where
Lives a woman true and fair.
If thou find'st one, let me know,
Such a pilgrimage were sweet;
Yet do not, I would not go,
Though at next door we might meet,
Though she were true, when you met
her,
And last, till you write your letter,
Yet she
Will be
False, ere I come, to two, or three.
Themes
• Relationships
• Impossible things
Other topics
• Do you agree with the
speaker? Is it impossible for
someone to be both
beautiful and faithful?
Poetry 2 – John Donne “Holy Sonnet 10”
Death be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadful, for, thou art not so,
For, those, whom thou think'st, thou dost overthrow,
Die not, poor death, nor yet canst thou kill me.
From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be,
Much pleasure, then from thee, much more must flow,
And soonest our best men with thee do go,
Rest of their bones, and souls delivery.
Thou art slave to Fate, Chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell,
And poppy, or charms can make us sleep as well,
And better then thy stroke; why swell'st thou then?
One short sleep past, we wake eternally,
And death shall be no more; death, thou shalt die.
Themes
• Death as a mortal being
• Victory over death
• Fear of dying
Other topics
• What happens when we
die?
Poetry 3 – Robert Burns “Auld Lang Syne”
Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
and never brought to mind?
Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
and auld lang syne?
Should old acquaintance be forgot,
and never brought to mind?
Should old acquaintance be forgot,
and old lang syne
CHORUS:
For auld lang syne, my jo,
for auld lang syne,
we’ll tak a cup o’ kindness yet,
for auld lang syne.
CHORUS:
For auld lang syne, my dear,
for auld lang syne,
we'll take a cup of kindness yet,
for auld lang syne.
And surely ye’ll be your pint-stowp!
and surely I’ll be mine!
And we’ll tak a cup o’ kindness yet,
for auld lang syne.
And surely you’ll buy your pint cup!
and surely I’ll buy mine!
And we'll take a cup o’ kindness yet,
for auld lang syne.
Themes
• Remembering:
– times gone by (the past).
– people who have left us
(passed away).
Other topics
• Why is this song so popular
around the new year?
• Is it right that old times
should be remembered, or
should we move on from
the past?
Poetry 4 – William Blake
“The Tyger” (1794)
Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?
What the hammer? what the chain?
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? what dread grasp
Dare its deadly terrors clasp?
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?
And what shoulder, & what art.
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand? & what dread
feet?
Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?
Themes
• Creation: Who created the
tiger - a kind God or an evil
devil?
• Duality: can something be
both beautiful and
evil/horrible (cars,
technology, etc.)?
Other topics
Poetry 5 – Percy Bysshe Shelley
“Ozymandias”
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".
Themes
• Pride and the fall (the rise
and fall of civilizations)
• Man vs. Nature
• Time
Other topics
Poetry 6 – Samuel Taylor Coleridge
“Kubla Khan”
Or a Vision in a Dream. A Fragment
In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure dome decree:
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to
man
Down to a sunless sea.
So twice five miles of fertile ground
With walls and towers were girdled
round:
And there were gardens bright
with sinuous rills,
Where blossomed many an incensebearing tree;
And here were forests ancient as the
hills,
Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.
But oh! that deep romantic chasm
which slanted
Down the green hill athwart a cedarn
cover!
A savage place! as holy and
enchanted
As e'er beneath a waning moon was
haunted
By woman wailing for her demon
lover!
And from this chasm, with
ceaseless turmoil seething,
As if this earth in fast thick pants
were breathing,
A mighty fountain momently was
forced:
Amid whose swift halfintermitted burst
Huge fragments vaulted like
rebounding hail,
Or chaffy grain beneath the
thresher's flail:
And 'mid these dancing rocks at
once and ever
It flung up momently the sacred
river.
Five miles meandering with a
mazy motion
Through wood and dale the
sacred river ran,
Then reached the caverns
measureless to man,
And sank in tumult to a lifeless
ocean:
And 'mid this tumult Kubla heard
from far
Ancestral voices prophesying war!
The shadow of the dome of
pleasure
Floated midway on the waves;
Where was heard the mingled
measure
From the fountain and the caves.
It was a miracle of rare device,
A sunny pleasure-dome with
caves of ice!
A damsel with a dulcimer
In a vision once I saw;
It was an Abyssinian maid,
And on her dulcimer she
played,
Singing of Mount Abora.
Could I revive within me
Her symphony and song,
To such a deep delight
'twould win me,
That with music loud and
long,
I would build that dome in
air,
That sunny dome! those
caves of ice!
And all who heard should
see them there,
And all should cry, Beware!
Beware!
His flashing eyes, his floating
hair!
Weave a circle round him
thrice,
And close your eyes with
holy dread,
For he on honey-dew hath
fed,
And drunk the milk of
Paradise.
Themes
• Imagination
– With in dreams
• Visions
– Desire to achieve
– Danger of doing so
Other topics
• Chant-like or musical style
-- Rhyme scheme ABAABCCDEDE
• Motifs
– Natural world
Poetry 7 – Christina Rossetti “Goblin
Market” (1862)
• Laura and Lizzie live by
themselves, and are
accustomed to draw
water every evening from
a stream.
• As the poem begins, the
sisters hear the calls from
the goblin merchants,
who sell fruits in fantastic
abundance, variety and
taste/smell.
•
Lizzie warns:
“We must not look at goblin men,
We must not buy their fruits:
Who knows upon what soil they fed
Their hungry thirsty roots?”
• On this evening, Laura lingers
at the stream after her sister
has left for home, intrigued by
the goblins' strange manner
and appearance. Wanting fruit
but having no money, the
impulsive Laura offers a lock of
her hair and "a tear more rare
than pearl."
• Laura gorges on the delicious
fruit, then once she is finished,
returns home in an ecstatic
trance.
•
Lizzie reminds Laura about the
cautionary tale of Jeanie, another girl
who had eaten the goblin’s fruits and
died after a long and horrible decline.
Laura dismisses her sister's worries,
and says she shall return to the goblins
the next night and return with more
fruits for herself and Lizzie.
•
The next day, as Laura and Lizzie go
about their work in the house, Laura
dreamily longs for the coming evening's
meeting with the goblins. But at the
stream that evening, as she strains to
hear the usual goblin chants and cries,
Laura discovers to her horror that,
although Lizzie still hears the goblins'
voices, she no longer can.
• Unable to buy more of
the forbidden fruit, and
sickening for the lack of
it, Laura falls into a slow
physical deterioration
and depression. As
winter approaches, she
withers away, ageing at
an unnatural rate.
• Weeks and months
pass, and finally Lizzie
realizes that Laura is on
the verge of death.
Tender Lizzie could not bear
To watch her sister’s cankerous care
Yet not to share.
She night and morning
Caught the goblins’ cry:
“Come buy our orchard fruits,
Come buy, come buy;”—
Beside the brook, along the glen,
She heard the tramp of goblin men,
The yoke and stir
Poor Laura could not hear;
Long’d to buy fruit to comfort her,
But fear’d to pay too dear.
She thought of Jeanie in her grave,
Who should have been a bride;
But who for joys brides hope to have
Fell sick and died
In her gay prime,
In earliest winter time
With the first glazing rime,
With the first snow-fall of crisp winter time.
Till Laura dwindling
Seem’d knocking at Death’s door:
Then Lizzie weigh’d no more
Better and worse;
But put a silver penny in her purse,
Kiss’d Laura, cross’d the heath with clumps
of furze
At twilight, halted by the brook:
And for the first time in her life
Began to listen and look.
Themes
• Biblical allusions
– Forbidden fruit
– Temptations
• “Fallen women”
• Drug addiction
• Sisters
Other topics
Poetry 8 – Alfred Lord Tennyson
"The Lady of Shalott“ (1833-1842)
• Part 1
– The Lady of Shalott, Elaine of Astolat, lives in a castle on an
island near Camelot.
• Part 2
– In her tower she weaves and watches shadows of newlyweds in
her mirror. She longs to be wedded.
• Part 3
– She sees Lancelot, a knight of Camelot, singing on his way to
Camelot. Sick of shadows, she leaves her room because she
wants to risk seeing him.
Poetry 9 – Robert Browning “My Last
Duchess” ()
Themes
Other topics
Poetry 10 – Matthew Arnold “Dover
Beach” ()
Themes
Other topics
Poetry 11 – Dylan Thomas “Do Not Go
Gentle into That Good Night” ()
Themes
Other topics