IMAGERY POEMS
Directions: The purpose of this assignment is to analyze the following poems below and discuss the poetic devices used, their overall
message and theme, and the use of imagery. Make notes of where devices are used below.
Prelude
The winter evening settles down
With smell of steaks in passageways.
Six o'clock.
The burnt-out ends of smoky days.
And now a gusty shower wraps
The grimy scraps
Of withered leaves about your feet
And newspapers from vacant lots;
The showers beat
On broken blinds and chimney-pots,
And at the corner of the street
A lonely cab-horse steams and stamps.
And then the lighting of the lamps.
By T.S. Eliot
Sweet Spring
When the gloomy gray sky turns to clear azure blue,
and the snow disappears from the ground,
when the birds start to sing, and our moods start to lift,
then we know spring is coming around.
When the first flower bulbs poke their heads toward the sun,
Golden daffodils, hyacinths, too;
when the brown grass turns green, and the wildflowers bloom,
then sweet spring makes its showy debut.
Once again we awake from cold winter's pale dream,
as our minds and our bodies revive;
we rejoice and delight in spring’s colorful sight;
each new spring makes us glad we’re alive!
By: Joanna Fuchs
As I Grew Older
It was a long time ago.
I have almost forgotten my dream.
But it was there then,
In front of me,
Bright like a sun- (5)
My dream.
And then the wall rose,
Rose slowly,
Slowly,
Between me and my dream. (10)
Rose slowly, slowly,
Dimming,
Hiding,
The light of my dream.
Rose until it touched the sky- (15)
The wall.
Shadow.
I am black.
I lie down in the shadow.
No longer the light of my dream before me, (20)
Above me.
Only the thick wall.
Only the shadow.
My hands!
My dark hands! (25)
Break through the wall!
Find my dream!
Help me to shatter this darkness,
To smash this night,
To break this shadow (30)
Into a thousand lights of sun,
Into a thousand whirling dreams
Of sun!
By: Langston Hughes