Great,wide,beautiful
wonderful world
W. B. RANDS
Great ,wide ,beautiful ,wonderful world, •
With the wonderful water around you •
curled,
And the wonderful grass on your beast- •
World, you are beautifully dressed. •
Ah, you bare so great and I am so small •
I tremble to think of you , world, at al, •
And yet when I said my prayers to-day •
A whisper inside me seemed to say •
“you are more than Earth, thought you •
are such a dot:
You can love and think, and the earth •
cannot!
Vocabulary:
Curled
Breast
Tremble
Whisper
Dot
Wide
: covered with – wrapped up •
: chest •
: to shake with excitement •
: a soft voice •
: very small point •
: very large - broad •
Paraphrase
In this poem the poet is an admired of the •
world and it’s beauty . He says that the
world is so big, so great & beautiful . he
believes that the world is a fine place. The
poet describes the fine world as a person,
and as a people are wrapped up in clothes,
so the world which is wrapped up in
wonderful grass , green fields and valleys
In the second part, starting from line 7,
however the idea is changed. The poet
compares between him self and the world.
At first, he admits that he is so small
compared to the world. But while praying
he hears a whisper that tells him that Man
is much more important than the world as
Man has which does not exist in the world
man can think and love but the world
cannot. This idea is summed up in the last
two lines “you are more than earth,
thought you are such a dot, you con love and
think but the earth cannot !”
commentary
a) the poem consists of ten lines of verse •
b) in the first line the poet emphasizes the •
greatness of the world using many
adjectives: great, wide, beautiful, wonderful
c)the poet personifies the world, describing
it as a person with human features
“world you are beautifully dressed” •
The rhyme scheme in this poem is quite •
simple; aa, bb, cc, dd, ee,
Figures of speech
a) personification: “with the grass in your breast”
•
world you are beautifully dressed
b) Alliteration: it gives internal music in the poem
Line 1: Wide, wonderful, world
Line 2: With, wonderful, water
Line 6: tremble, think
Line 8: seemed, say