Poetry Analysis: Covering All Basics
Element
Read for
subject, situation,
speaker(s), tone(s)—
shifting tone, ironic one,
Voice: Speaker / multiple overlaid tones
Tone
Syntax
 grammatical sense
 striking or irregular
sentence structure,
sentence length, or
word arrangement
Poems for review
“In the Orchard” Muriel Stuart
“When My Love Swears She Is
Made of Truth,” William
Shakespeare
“The Man He Killed,” Thomas
Hardy
“An Irish Airman Foresees His
Death,” Wm. Butler Yeats
Diction
“Miniver Cheevey” Edwin
 unusual words
 highly precise words Arlington Robinson
 puns (double
denotations)
 highly connotative
words
“Rape,” Adrienne Rich
 various types used
 emotional impact
/content of images
 pattern of a single
image or type
Imagery
“Meeting at Night,” and “Parting at
Morning,” by Robert Browning
“First Death in Nova Scotia,” by
Elizabeth Bishop
Page 1 of 14
Focus of analysis
Explain the differences in the dialogue of the
two speakers. What do questions, ellipses,
and repeated words contribute to the tone?
Describe the speaker. Thoroughly explain
his attitude (tone) toward his relationship.
Explain how puns enhance the tone(s).
Explain how the following reinforce the
poem's meaning:
 The single sentences in the first two
stanzas.
 The dashes in stanzas 3 & 4
 The return to fluent syntax in sen. 5
Explain the relationship between the
parallel structures of each paired line and
the airman's sense of being locked into a
fated pattern.
 Locate words that illustrate Cheevey's
love of “the days of old.”
 Identify verbs that suggest
a. action b. inaction
 What is revealed about the speaker
through his diction?
 Explain the implications of the words
“father,” “prowler,” and “confessor.”
 Explain the implications of line 8: “He
and his stallion clop like warlords
among the trash.”
 Each line in “Meeting at Night”
contains an image. Identify each image,
the sense it involves, and the feeing it
evokes.
 Explain why “Meeting at Night” is a
prime example of ·showing- instead of
telling.
 Lines 1 & 2 of “Parting at Morning”
show the sun and the sea moving
toward the speaker. Why does the poet
reverse cause and effect?
 How does the poet use imagery to link
together Arthur, the loon, and the royal
couples in the chromographs (color
photos)?
 How does the imagery help establish
the limitations of the speaker's
understanding of death?
 Note how some imagery is used
metaphorically.
Element
Figurative
Language
Read for
 images used
metaphorically or
symbolically (as
similes, “ metaphors,
personification etc.)
 something talked
about in terms of
something else




Sound
Rhythm
Structure
Poems for review
“It Sifts from Leaden Selves,”
Emily Dickenson
“That Time of Year Thou Mayst in
Me Behold,” William Shakespeare
“Sound and Sense,” by Alexander
rhyme
Pope
alliteration
assonance
identify places where
the poem's music is
“In the Valley of Elwy,” Gerard
most expressive
Manley Hopkins
 significance of the
pace in the lines
 noticeable shifts or
breaks in the pace or
meter
 type of form
 open (how is the
poem organically
structured? What
devices lend it
structure?)
 closed (identify
form—sonnet etc.)
 how does the form
shape the thought
and emotion
“My Papa's Waltz” Theodore
Roethke
Focus of analysis
Identify the literal and figurative
components of all of the implied metaphors
(the literal meaning of the metaphors is only
labeled “it”).
 Note the literal images and explain
how they become metaphorical.
 Explain the poem's extended
metaphors.
 Identify lines in which Pope uses
sound devices to accomplish what he
asserts in line 4: “the sound must seem
an echo to the sense.”
 What contrast is described and
imitated in sound effects in lines 5-6,
7-8, and between lines 8-10 and 1112?
 What is the cumulative effect of the
sound devices for the poem's meaning?
 What is the significance of the lack of
sound devices in line 11?
How does the rhythm reflect the poem's
content?
“The Tyger” and “The Lamb,” by
William Blake
“The Tyger” employs the trochaic foot while
“The Lamb” employs the anapestic foot.
Explain how each poem's meaning is
reflected in the type of meter employed.
“That Time of Year Thou Mayst in Note Shakespearean and Petrarchan forms.
Me Behold” and “In the Valley of How does the type of sonnet employed
Elwy”
shape the thought and emotional content of
each poem?
“When I heard the Learned
Astronomer,” Walt Whitman
What in the syntax of the first four lines is
different from the last four lines? Why can
“The Flea,” John Donne
this be considered a structural device?
Justify the poem’s divisions into three
stanzas. Why are the last three lines of each
stanza indented?
Page 2 of 14
In the Orchard
by Muriel Stuart
Voice: Speaker / Tone (subject, situation, speaker(s), tone(s)—shifting tone, ironic one, multiple
overlaid tones): Explain the differences in the dialogue of the two speakers. What do questions,
ellipses, and repeated words contribute to the tone?
'I thought you loved me.' 'No, it was only fun.'
'When we stood there, closer than all?' 'Well, the harvest moon
Was shining and queer in your hair, and it turned my head.'
'That made you?' 'Yes.' 'Just the moon and the light it made
Under the tree?' 'Well, your mouth, too.' 'Yes, my mouth?'
'And the quiet there that sang like the drum in the booth.
You shouldn't have danced like that.' 'Like what?' 'So close,
With your head turned up, and the flower in your hair, a rose
That smelt all warm.' 'I loved you. I thought you knew
I wouldn't have danced like that with any but you.'
'I didn't know, I thought you knew it was fun.'
'I thought it was love you meant.' 'Well, it's done.' 'Yes, it's done.
I've seen boys stone a blackbird, and watched them drown
A kitten... it clawed at the reeds, and they pushed it down
Into the pool while it screamed. Is that fun, too?'
'Well, boys are like that... Your brothers...' 'Yes, I know.
But you, so lovely and strong! Not you! Not you!'
'They don't understand it's cruel. It's only a game.'
'And are girls fun, too?' 'No, still in a way it's the same.
It's queer and lovely to have a girl...' 'Go on.'
'It makes you mad for a bit to feel she's your own,
And you laugh and kiss her, and maybe you give her a ring,
But it's only in fun.' 'But I gave you everything.'
'Well, you shouldn't have done it. You know what a fellow thinks
When a girl does that.' 'Yes, he talks of her over his drinks
And calls her a--' 'Stop that now, I thought you knew.'
'But it wasn't with anyone else. It was only you.'
'How did I know? I thought you wanted it too.
I thought you were like the rest. Well, what's to be done?'
'To be done' 'Is it all right?' 'Yes.' 'Sure?' 'Yes, but why?'
'I don't know, I thought you were going to cry.
You said you had something to tell me.' 'Yes, I know.
It wasn't anything really... I think I'll go.'
'Yes, it's late. There's thunder about, a drop of rain
Fell on my hand in the dark. I'll see you again
At the dance next week. You're sure that everything's right?'
'Yes,' 'Well, I'll be going.' 'Kiss me...' 'Good night.' ... 'Good night.'
Page 3 of 14
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Sonnet #138
by William Shakespeare
Voice: Speaker / Tone (subject, situation, speaker(s), tone(s)—shifting tone, ironic one, multiple
overlaid tones): Describe the speaker. Thoroughly explain his attitude (tone) toward his
relationship. Explain how puns enhance the tone(s).
When my love swears that she is made of truth
I do believe her, though I know she lies,
That she might think me some untutor'd youth,
Unlearned in the world's false subtleties.
Thus vainly thinking that she thinks me young,
Although she knows my days are past the best,
Simply I credit her false-speaking tongue:
On both sides thus is simple truth suppress'd.
But wherefore says she not she is unjust?
And wherefore say not I that I am old?
O, love's best habit is in seeming trust,
And age in love loves not to have years told:
5
10
Therefore I lie with her and she with me,
And in our faults by lies we flatter'd be.
The Man He Killed
By Thomas Hardy
Syntax (grammatical sense, striking or irregular sentence structure, sentence length, or word
arrangement): Explain how the following reinforce the poem's meaning:
 The single sentences in the first two stanzas
 The dashes in stanzas 3 & 4
 The return to fluent syntax in stanza 5
"Had he and I but met
By some old ancient inn,
We should have sat us down to wet
Right many a nipperkin1!
"But ranged as infantry,
And staring face to face,
I shot at him as he at me,
And killed him in his place.
"He thought he'd 'list2, perhaps,
Off-hand like — just as I —
Was out of work — had sold his traps3 — 15
No other reason why.
5
"I shot him dead because —
Because he was my foe,
10
Just so: my foe of course he was;
That's clear enough; although
"Yes; quaint and curious war is!
You shoot a fellow down
You'd treat if met where any bar is,
Or help to half-a-crown."
20
______
1.
2.
3.
Page 4 of 14
a liquor container or vessel with a
capacity of a half pint or less.
contraction for enlist
contraction for trappings
An Irish Airman foresees his Death
by W.B. Yeats (1865–1939). The Wild Swans at Coole. 1919.
Syntax (grammatical sense, striking or irregular sentence structure, sentence length, or word
arrangement): Explain the relationship between the parallel structures of each paired line and the
airman's sense of being locked into a fated pattern.
I KNOW that I shall meet my fate
Somewhere among the clouds above;
Those that I fight I do not hate
Those that I guard I do not love;
My country is Kiltartan Cross,
5
My countrymen Kiltartan’s poor,
No likely end could bring them loss
Or leave them happier than before.
Nor law, nor duty bade me fight,
Nor public man, nor cheering crowds,
10
A lonely impulse of delight
Drove to this tumult in the clouds;
I balanced all, brought all to mind,
The years to come seemed waste of breath,
A waste of breath the years behind
15
In balance with this life, this death.
Page 5 of 14
Miniver Cheevy
by E.A. Robinson
Diction (unusual words, highly precise words, puns (double denotations), highly connotative
words:
Locate words that illustrate Cheevey's love of “the days of old.”
 Identify verbs that suggest action and inaction.
 What is revealed about the speaker through his diction?
Miniver Cheevy, child of scorn,
Grew lean while he assailed the seasons;
He wept that he was ever born,
And he had reasons.
Miniver loved the days of old
When swords were bright and steeds were prancing;
The vision of a warrior bold
Would set him dancing.
Miniver sighed for what was not,
And dreamed, and rested from his labors;
He dreamed of Thebes and Camelot,
And Priam's neighbors.
5
10
Miniver mourned the ripe renown
That made so many a name so fragrant;
He mourned Romance, now on the town,
And Art, a vagrant.
15
Miniver loved the Medici,
Albeit he had never seen one;
He would have sinned incessantly
Could he have been one.
20
Miniver cursed the commonplace
And eyed a khaki suit with loathing;
He missed the mediæval grace
Of iron clothing.
Miniver scorned the gold he sought,
But sore annoyed was he without it;
Miniver thought, and thought, and thought,
And thought about it.
25
Miniver Cheevy, born too late,
Scratched his head and kept on thinking;
Miniver coughed, and called it fate,
And kept on drinking.
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Page 6 of 14
Rape
by Adrienne Rich, from DIVING INTO THE WRECK
Diction (unusual words, highly precise words, puns (double denotations), highly connotative
words:
Explain the implications of the words “father,” “prowler,” and “confessor.”
Explain the implications of line 8: “He and his stallion clop like warlords among the trash.”
There is a cop who is both prowler and father:
he comes from your block, grew up with your brothers,
had certain ideals.
You hardly know him in his boots and silver badge,
on horseback, one hand touching his gun.
5
You hardly know him but you have to get to know him:
he has access to machinery that could kill you.
He and his stallion clop like warlords among the trash,
his ideals stand in the air, a frozen cloud
from between his unsmiling lips.
10
And so, when the time comes, you have to turn to him,
the maniac's sperm still greasing your thighs,
your mind whirling like crazy. You have to confess
to him, you are guilty of the crime
of having been forced.
15
And you see his blue eyes, the blue eyes of all the family
whom you used to know, grow narrow and glisten,
his hands types out the details
and he wants them all
but the hysteria in your voice pleases him best.
20
You hardly know him but now he thinks he knows you:
he has taken down your worst moment
on a machine and filed it in a file.
He knows, or he thinks he knows, how much you imagined;
he knows, or thinks he knows, what you secretly wanted.
25
He has access to machinery that could get you put away;
and if, in the sickening light of the precinct,
and if, in the sickening light of the precinct,
your details sound like a portrait of your confessor,
will you swallow, will you deny them, will you lie your way home?
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Page 7 of 14
Robert Browning (1812 – 1889)
Imagery: various types used, emotional impact /content of images, pattern of a single image or
type
Each line in “Meeting at Night” contains an image. Identify each image, the sense it involves, and the
feeing it evokes. Explain why “Meeting at Night” is a prime example of showing instead of telling.
Lines 1 & 2 of “Parting at Morning” show the sun and the sea moving toward the speaker. Why does
the poet reverse cause and effect?
Meeting at Night
The grey sea and the long black land;
And the yellow half-moon large and low;
And the startled little waves that leap
In fiery ringlets from their sleep,
As I gain the cove with pushing prow,
And quench its speed i' the slushy sand.
5
Then a mile of warm sea-scented beach;
Three fields to cross till a farm appears;
A tap at the pane, the quick sharp scratch
And blue spurt of a lighted match,
And a voice less loud, thro' its joys and fears,
Than the two hearts beating each to each!
10
Parting at Morning
Round the cape of a sudden came the sea,
And the sun look'd over the mountain's rim:
And straight was a path of gold for him,
And the need of a world of men for me.
First Death In Nova Scotia
by Elizabeth Bishop
Imagery: various types used, emotional impact /content of images, pattern of a single image or
type
How does the poet use imagery to link together Arthur, the loon, and the royal couples in the
chromographs (color photos)? How does the imagery help establish the limitations of the speaker's
understanding of death?
Note how some imagery is used metaphorically.
In the cold, cold parlor
my mother laid out Arthur
beneath the chromographs:
Edward, Prince of Wales,
with Princess Alexandra,
and King George with Queen Mary.
Below them on the table
stood a stuffed loon
shot and stuffed by Uncle
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Page 8 of 14
Arthur, Arthur's father.
Since Uncle Arthur fired
a bullet into him,
he hadn't said a word.
He kept his own counsel
on his white, frozen lake,
the marble-topped table.
His breast was deep and white,
cold and caressable;
his eyes were red glass,
much to be desired.
"Come," said my mother,
"Come and say good-bye
to your little cousin Arthur."
I was lifted up and given
one lily of the valley
to put in Arthur's hand.
Arthur's coffin was
a little frosted cake,
and the red-eyed loon eyed it
from his white, frozen lake.
Arthur was very small.
He was all white, like a doll
that hadn't been painted yet.
Jack Frost had started to paint him
the way he always painted
the Maple Leaf (Forever).
He had just begun on his hair,
a few red strokes, and then
Jack Frost had dropped the brush
and left him white, forever.
The gracious royal couples
were warm in red and ermine;
their feet were well wrapped up
in the ladies' ermine trains.
They invited Arthur to be
the smallest page at court.
But how could Arthur go,
clutching his tiny lily,
with his eyes shut up so tight
and the roads deep in snow?
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Page 9 of 14
It Sifts from Leaden Sieves - (291)
By Emily Dickinson
Figurative Language: images used metaphorically or symbolically (as similes, metaphors,
personification etc.)—something talked about in terms of something else
Identify the literal and figurative components of all of the implied metaphors (the literal meaning of
the metaphors is only labeled “it”).
It sifts from Leaden Sieves It powders all the Wood.
It fills with Alabaster Wool
The Wrinkles of the Road It makes an even Face
Of Mountain, and of Plain Unbroken Forehead from the East
Unto the East again It reaches to the Fence It wraps it Rail by Rail
Till it is lost in Fleeces It deals Celestial Vail
To Stump, and Stack - and Stem A Summer’s empty Room Acres of Joints, where Harvests were,
Recordless, but for them -
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It Ruffles Wrists of Posts
As Ankles of a Queen Then stills it’s Artisans - like Ghosts Denying they have been -
Page 10 of 14
That time of year thou mayst in me behold (Sonnet 73)
by William Shakespeare
Figurative Language: images used metaphorically or symbolically (as similes, metaphors,
personification etc.)—something talked about in terms of something else
Note the literal images and explain how they become metaphorical. Explain the poem's extended
metaphors.
Structure: type of form, open: organically structured, closed: has a particular form—sonnet etc.
Note Shakespearean and Petrarchan forms. How does the type of sonnet employed shape the
thought and emotional content of each poem?
That time of year thou mayst in me behold
When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
Bare ruined choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.
In me thou see'st the twilight of such day
As after sunset fadeth in the west;
Which by and by black night doth take away,
Death's second self, that seals up all in rest.
In me thou see'st the glowing of such fire,
That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,
As the deathbed whereon it must expire,
Consumed with that which it was nourished by.
This thou perceiv'st, which makes thy love more strong,
To love that well which thou must leave ere long.
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In the Valley of the Elwy
by Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844–89). Poems. 1918.
Sound: rhyme, alliteration, assonance, identify places where the poem's music is most expressive
What is the cumulative effect of the sound devices for the poem’s meaning? What is the significance
of the lack of sound devices in line 11?
Structure: type of form, open: organically structured, closed: has a particular form—sonnet etc.
How does the form shape the thought and emotion? Note Shakespearean and Petrarchan forms.
How does the type of sonnet employed shape the thought and emotional content of each poem?
I REMEMBER a house where all were good
To me, God knows, deserving no such thing:
Comforting smell breathed at very entering,
Fetched fresh, as I suppose, off some sweet wood.
That cordial air made those kind people a hood
All over, as a bevy of eggs the mothering wing
Will, or mild nights the new morsels of spring:
Why, it seemed of course; seemed of right it should.
Lovely the woods, waters, meadows, combes, vales,
All the air things wear that build this world of Wales;
Only the inmate does not correspond:
God, lover of souls, swaying considerate scales,
Complete thy creature dear O where it fails,
Being mighty a master, being a father and fond.
Page 11 of 14
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Sound and Sense
by Alexander Pope
Sound: rhyme, alliteration, assonance, identify places where the poem's music is most expressive
Identify lines in which Pope uses sound devices to accomplish what he asserts in line 4: “the sound
must seem an echo to the sense.”
True ease in writing comes from art, not chance,
As those move easiest who have learned to dance.
'Tis not enough no harshness gives offense,
The sound must seem an echo to the sense:
Soft is the strain when Zephyr gently blows,
And the smooth stream in smoother numbers flows;
But when loud surges lash the sounding shore,
The hoarse, rough verse should like the torrent roar;
When Ajax strives some rock's vast weight to throw,
The line too labors, and the words move slow;
Not so, when swift Camilla scours the plain,
Flies o'er the unbending corn, and skims along the main.
Hear how Timotheus' varied lays surprise,
And bid alternate passions fall and rise!
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My Papa’s Waltz
By Theodore Roethke
Rhythm: significance of the pace in the lines, noticeable shifts or breaks in the pace or meter
How does the rhythm reflect the poem’s content?
The whiskey on your breath
Could make a small boy dizzy;
But I hung on like death:
Such waltzing was not easy.
We romped until the pans
Slid from the kitchen shelf;
My mother’s countenance
Could not unfrown itself.
The hand that held my wrist
Was battered on one knuckle;
At every step you missed
My right ear scraped a buckle.
You beat time on my head
With a palm caked hard by dirt,
Then waltzed me off to bed
Still clinging to your shirt.
Page 12 of 14
Rhythm: significance of the pace in the lines, noticeable shifts or breaks in the pace or meter
“The Tyger” employs the trochaic foot while “The Lamb” employs the anapestic foot. Explain how
each poem’s meaning is reflected in the type of meter employed.
The Lamb
by William Blake. 1757–1827
The Tiger
by William Blake. 1757–1827
Little Lamb who made thee
Dost thou know who made thee
Gave thee life & bid thee feed.
By the stream & o'er the mead;
Gave thee clothing of delight,
Softest clothing wooly bright;
Gave thee such a tender voice,
Making all the vales rejoice:
Little Lamb who made thee
Dost thou know who made thee
TIGER, tiger, burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?
Little Lamb I'll tell thee,
Little Lamb I'll tell thee:
He is called by thy name,
For he calls himself a Lamb:
He is meek & he is mild,
He became a little child:
I a child & thou a lamb,
We are called by his name.
Little Lamb God bless thee.
Little Lamb God bless thee.
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?
5
And what shoulder and what art
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
10
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?
15
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? 20
Tiger, tiger, burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?
Page 13 of 14
When I heard the learn’d astronomer
by Walt Whitman (1819–1892) Leaves of Grass. 1900
Structure: type of form, open: organically structured, closed: has a particular form—sonnet etc.
What in the syntax of the first four lines is different from the last four lines? Why can this be
considered a structural device?
WHEN I heard the learn’d astronomer;
When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me;
When I was shown the charts and the diagrams, to add, divide, and measure them;
When I, sitting, heard the astronomer, where he lectured with much applause in the lecture-room,
How soon, unaccountable, I became tired and sick;
Till rising and gliding out, I wander’d off by myself,
In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time,
Look’d up in perfect silence at the stars.
The Flea
By John Donne
Structure: type of form, open: organically structured, closed: has a particular form—sonnet etc.
Justify the poem’s divisions into three stanzas. Why are the last three lines of each stanza indented?
Mark but this flea, and mark in this,
How little that which thou deniest me is;
It sucked me first, and now sucks thee,
And in this flea our two bloods mingled be;
Thou know’st that this cannot be said
5
A sin, nor shame, nor loss of maidenhead,
Yet this enjoys before it woo,
And pampered swells with one blood made of two,
And this, alas, is more than we would do.
Oh stay, three lives in one flea spare,
Where we almost, nay more than married are.
This flea is you and I, and this
Our mariage bed, and marriage temple is;
Though parents grudge, and you, w'are met,
And cloistered in these living walls of jet.
Though use make you apt to kill me,
Let not to that, self-murder added be,
And sacrilege, three sins in killing three.
Cruel and sudden, hast thou since
Purpled thy nail, in blood of innocence?
Wherein could this flea guilty be,
Except in that drop which it sucked from thee?
Yet thou triumph’st, and say'st that thou
Find’st not thy self, nor me the weaker now;
’Tis true; then learn how false, fears be:
Just so much honor, when thou yield’st to me,
Will waste, as this flea’s death took life from thee.
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