Poetry
Terms
Booklet
A Look At: William Wordsworth
Definitions:
Stanzas – ______________________________________________________________________________
Lines – ________________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________________
Rhyme Scheme – ______________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________________
Syllable – ______________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________________
Sonnet composed upon Westminster
Bridge, September 3, 1802
Earth has not anything to
show more fair:
Dull would he be of soul
who could pass by
A sight so touching in
its majesty:
This City now doth like a
garment wear
The beauty of the
morning: silent, bare,
Ships, towers, domes,
theatres, and temples
lie
Open unto the fields, and
to the sky,
All bright and glittering
in the smokeless air.
Never did sun more
beautifully steep
In his first splendour
valley, rock, or hill;
Ne'er saw I, never felt,
a calm so deep!
The river glideth at his
own sweet will:
Dear God! the very houses
seem asleep;
And all that mighty heart
is lying still!
What type of poem is ‘Sonnet composed upon Westminster Bridge, Spetember 3, 1802’?
_______________________________________________________________________________________
What things are needed to be considered a sonnet?
_______________________________________________________________________________________
What is the problem of the poem? What lines is the problem presented?
_______________________________________________________________________________________
What is the resolution of the poem? What lines is the resolution presented?
_______________________________________________________________________________________
A Look At: Emily Dickinson
A Bird came down the Walk
–
He did not know I saw –
He bit an Angleworm 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 around –
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.
Define the following from the poem “A Bird came down the Walk”:
“Angleworm” – ________________________________________________________________________
“unrolled his feathers and rowed him softer home” – ____________________________________
“plashless” – ___________________________________________________________________________
I’m Nobody! Who are you?
Are you – Nobody – too?
Then there’s a pair of
us!
Don’t tell! They’ll
banish us – you know!
How dreary – to be –
Somebody!
How public – like a Frog
–
To tell your name – the
livelong June –
To an admiring Bog!
Answer the following about the poem “I’m Nobody!”:
Does the author really want to go unnoticed? __________________________________________
How can you tell? _____________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________________
Why does she claim to want to go unnoticed if in reality she wants to have friends?
_______________________________________________________________________________________
Definitions:
Personification – _______________________________________________________________________
The Wind begun to knead
the Grass—
As Women do a Dough—
He flung a Hand full at
the Plain—
A Hand full at the Sky—
The Leaves unhooked
themselves from Trees—
And started all abroad—
The Dust did scoop itself
like Hands—
And throw away the Road—
The Wagons quickened on
the Street—
The Thunders gossiped
low—
The Lightning showed a
Yellow Head—
And then a livid Toe—
The Birds put up the Bars
to Nests—
The Cattle flung to
Barns—
Then came one drop of
Giant Rain—
And then, as if the Hands
That held the Dams—had
parted hold—
The Waters Wrecked the
Sky—
But overlooked my
Father's House—
Just Quartering a Tree—
Define the following from the poem “The wind begun to kead the Grass”:
“knead” – _____________________________________________________________________________
What does the poem personify? _______________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________________
Give an example of personification: ____________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________________
What is unusual about Emily Dickinson’s style of writing?
_______________________________________________________________________________________
A Look At: Alfred, Lord
Tennyson
Definitions:
Assonance – __________________________________________________________________________
List 3 Examples of Assonance – _________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________________
Alliteration – ___________________________________________________________________________
Give an example of alliteration – _______________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________________
The Eagle
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.
Answer the following about “The Eagle”:
What is Alfred, Lord Tennyson personifying? _____________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________________
What is an example of this personification? _____________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________________
What is an example of alliteration? _____________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________________
What is an example of assonance? _____________________________________________________
A Look At: John Keats
La Belle Dame Sans Merci
Oh what can ail
thee, knight-atarms,
Alone and palely
loitering?
The sedge has
withered from the
lake,
And no birds sing.
Oh what can ail
thee, knight-atarms,
So haggard and so
woe-begone?
The squirrel's
granary is full,
And the harvest's
done.
I see a lily on thy
brow,
With anguish moist
and fever-dew,
And on thy cheeks a
fading rose
Fast withereth too.
I met a lady in the
meads,
Full beautiful - a
faery's child,
Her hair was long,
her foot was light,
And her eyes were
wild.
I made a garland for
her head,
And bracelets too,
and fragrant zone;
She looked at me as
she did love,
And made sweet moan.
I set her on my
pacing steed,
And nothing else saw
all day long,
For sidelong would
she bend, and sing
A faery's song.
She found me roots
of relish sweet,
And honey wild, and
manna-dew,
And sure in language
strange she said 'I love thee true'.
She took me to her
elfin grot,
And there she wept
and sighed full
sore,
And there I shut her
wild wild eyes
With kisses four.
And there she lulled
me asleep
And there I dreamed
- Ah! woe betide! The latest dream I
ever dreamt
On the cold hill
side.
I saw pale kings and
princes too,
Pale warriors,
death-pale were they
all;
They cried - 'La
Belle Dame sans
Merci
Hath thee in
thrall!'
I saw their starved
lips in the gloam,
With horrid warning
gaped wide,
And I awoke and
found me here,
On the cold hill's
side.
And this is why I
sojourn here
Alone and palely
loitering,
Though the sedge is
withered from the
lake,
And no birds sing.
This poem is a ballad. What is a ballad? ________________________________________________
Most ballads are written in ____________________________________________ or four line
stanzas of alternating lines of _________________________ (an unstressed followed by a
stressed syllable) ________________________________ (eight syllables) and
_________________________ _________________________ (six syllables), known as a
_________________________ _________________________.
A Look At: John Masefield
Cargoes
Quinquireme of Nineveh from distant Ophir,
Rowing home to haven in sunny Palestine,
With a cargo of ivory,
And apes and peacocks,
Sandalwood, cedarwood, and sweet white
wine.
Stately Spanish galleon coming from the
Isthmus,
Dipping through the Tropics by the palmgreen shores,
With a cargo of diamonds,
Emeralds, amythysts,
Topazes, and cinnamon, and gold moidores.
Dirty British coaster with a salt-caked
smoke stack,
Butting through the Channel in the mad
March days,
With a cargo of Tyne coal,
Road-rails, pig-lead,
Firewood, iron-ware, and cheap tin trays.
Define the following terms from “Cargoes”:
Quinquireme: _________________________________________________________________________
Nineveh: ______________________________________________________________________________
Ophir:_________________________________________________________________________________
Palestine:_____________________________________________________________________________
Galleon: ______________________________________________________________________________
Isthmus:________________________________________________________________________________
Amethyst:_____________________________________________________________________________
Topazes:_______________________________________________________________________________
Moiders:_______________________________________________________________________________
Coaster:_______________________________________________________________________________
Salt-caked:____________________________________________________________________________
Channel:______________________________________________________________________________
Tyne:__________________________________________________________________________________
Pig-Lead:______________________________________________________________________________
What is the first stanza talking about? ___________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________________
What is the second stanza talking about? _______________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________________
What is the third stanza talking about? __________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________________
A Look At: Edna St. Vincent
Millay
Travel
The railroad track is miles away,
And the day is loud with voices speaking,
Yet there isn’t a train goes by all day
But I hear its whistle shrieking.
All night there isn’t a train goes by,
Though the night is still for sleep and
dreaming,
But I see its cinders red on the sky,
And hear its engine steaming.
My heart is warm with the friends I make,
And better friends I’ll not be knowing;
Yet there isn’t a train I wouldn’t take,
No matter where it’s going.
Answer the following about “Travel”:
What is the rhyme scheme? ____________________________________________________________
What do you notice about all the “A” rhyming lines (except the first one? ________________
_______________________________________________________________________________________
What do you notice about all the “B” rhyming lines? ____________________________________
What do you notice about the length of the stanzas? ___________________________________
A Look At: Robert Frost
The Road Not Taken
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 kept 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.
Answer the following from “The Road Not Taken”:
What is the rhyme scheme? ____________________________________________________________
What does the first stanza talk about? __________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________________
What does the second stanza talk about? ______________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________________
What does the third stanza talk about? _________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________________
What are two ways to interpret the fourth stanza? _______________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________________