Symbolism and Comparisons Valentine Carol Ann Duffy My Life had stood — a Loaded Gun — Emily Dickinson Not a red rose or a satin heart. I give you an onion. It is a moon wrapped in brown paper. It promises light like the careful undressing of love. Here. It will blind you with tears like a lover. It will make your reflection a wobbling photo of grief. I am trying to be truthful. My Life had stood — a Loaded Gun — In Corners — till a Day The Owner passed — identified — And carried Me away — And now We roam in Sovereign Woods — And now We hunt the Doe — And every time I speak for Him — The Mountains straight reply — And do I smile, such cordial light Upon the Valley glow — It is as a Vesuvian face Had let its pleasure through — Not a cute card or a kissogram. I give you an onion. Its fierce kiss will stay on your lips, possessive and faithful as we are, for as long as we are. Take it. Its platinum loops shrink to a wedding-ring, if you like. Lethal. Its scent will cling to your fingers, cling to your knife. And when at Night — Our good Day done — I guard My Master's Head — 'Tis better than the Eider-Duck's Deep Pillow — to have shared — To foe of His — I'm deadly foe — None stir the second time — On whom I lay a Yellow Eye — Or an emphatic Thumb — Though I than He — may longer live He longer must — than I — For I have but the power to kill, Without — the power to die — ! The Boston Evening Transcript T.S. Eliot The readers of the Boston Evening Transcript Sway in the wind like a field of ripe corn. When evening quickens faintly in the street, Wakening the appetites of life in some And to others bringing the Boston Evening Transcript, I mount the steps and ring the bell, turning Wearily, as one would turn to nod good-bye to Rochefoucauld, If the street were time and he at the end of the street, And I say, "Cousin Harriet, here is the Boston Evening Transcript." A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning John Donne As virtuous men pass mildly away, And whisper to their souls to go, Whilst some of their sad friends do say The breath goes now, and some say, No: So let us melt, and make no noise, No tear-floods, nor sigh-tempests move; 'Twere profanation of our joys To tell the laity our love. Moving of th' earth brings harms and fears, Men reckon what it did, and meant; But trepidation of the spheres, Though greater far, is innocent. Dull sublunary lovers' love (Whose soul is sense) cannot admit Absence, because it doth remove Those things which elemented it. But we by a love so much refined, That our selves know not what it is, Inter-assured of the mind, Care less, eyes, lips, and hands to miss. Our two souls therefore, which are one, Though I must go, endure not yet A breach, but an expansion, Like gold to airy thinness beat. If they be two, they are two so As stiff twin compasses are two; Thy soul, the fixed foot, makes no show To move, but doth, if the other do. And though it in the center sit, Yet when the other far doth roam, It leans and hearkens after it, And grows erect, as that comes home. Such wilt thou be to me, who must, Like th' other foot, obliquely run; Thy firmness makes my circle just, And makes me end where I begun. I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud William Wordsworth Sonrisas Pat Mora I live in a doorway between two rooms. I hear quiet clicks, cups of black coffee, click, click like facts budgets, tenure curriculum, from careful women in crisp beige suits, quick beige smiles that seldom sneak into their eyes. I peek in the other room senoras in faded dresses stir sweet milk coffee, laughter whirls with steam from fresh tamales sh, sh, mucho ruido they scold one another, press their lips, trap smiles in their dark, Mexican eyes. The Harvest Moon Ted Hughes The flame-red moon, the harvest moon, Rolls along the hills, gently bouncing, A vast balloon, Till it takes off, and sinks upward To lie on the bottom of the sky, like a gold doubloon. The harvest moon has come, Booming softly through heaven, like a bassoon. And the earth replies all night, like a deep drum. So people can't sleep, So they go out where elms and oak trees keep A kneeling vigil, in a religious hush. The harvest moon has come! And all the moonlit cows and all the sheep Stare up at her petrified, while she swells Filling heaven, as if red hot, and sailing Write a neat, one page, well-written analysis on a symbol or comparison in one of the poems in this packet. How does the symbol function in the poem? How does it affect meaning of the work as a whole? I wandered lonely as a cloud That floats on high o'er vales and hills, When all at once I saw a crowd, A host, of golden daffodils; Beside the lake, beneath the trees, Fluttering and dancing in the breeze. Continuous as the stars that shine And twinkle on the milky way, They stretched in never-ending line Along the margin of a bay: Ten thousand saw I at a glance, Tossing their heads in sprightly dance. The waves beside them danced; but they Out-did the sparkling waves in glee: A poet could not but be gay, In such a jocund company: I gazed—and gazed—but little thought What wealth the show to me had brought: For oft, when on my couch I lie In vacant or in pensive mood, They flash upon that inward eye Which is the bliss of solitude; And then my heart with pleasure fills, And dances with the daffodils.