Dover Beach
The sea is calm tonight.
The tide is full, the moon
lies fair
Upon the straits; on the
French coast the light
Gleams and is gone; the cliffs
of England stand,
Glimmering and vast, out in
the tranquil bay.
Come to the window, sweet is
the night-air!
Only, from the long line of
spray
Where the sea meets the
moon-blanched land,
Listen! you hear the grating
roar
Of pebbles which the waves
draw back, and fling,
At their return, up the high
strand,
Begin, and cease, and then
again begin,
With tremulous cadence slow,
and bring
The eternal note of sadness
in.
Sophocles long ago
Heard it on the Ægean, and it
brought
Into his mind the turbid ebb
and flow
Of human misery; we
Find also in the sound a
thought,
Hearing it by this distant
northern sea.
The Sea of Faith
Was once, too, at the full,
and round earth’s shore
Lay like the folds of a bright
girdle furled.
But now I only hear
Its melancholy, long,
withdrawing roar,
Retreating, to the breath
Of the night-wind, down the
vast edges drear
And naked shingles of the
world.
Ah, love, let us be true
To one another! for the world,
which seems
To lie before us like a land
of dreams,
So various, so beautiful, so
new,
Hath really neither joy, nor
love, nor light,
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor
help for pain;
And we are here as on a
darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of
struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by
night.
Dover Beach Analysis
Dover Beach Analysis
The speaker's tone was somber throughout the poem. The poem illustrates change, humanity, and the struggle for the truth. The imagery in this poem is breathtaking.
We Real Cool
By: Gwendolyn Brooks
THE POOL PLAYERS.
SEVEN AT THE GOLDEN SHOVEL.
We real cool. We
Left school. We
Lurk late. We
Strike straight. We
Sing sin. We
Thin gin. We
Jazz June. We
Die soon.
We real cool. We
Left school. We
Lurk late. We
Strike straight. We
Sing sin. We
Thin gin. We
Jazz June. We
Die soon.
We Real Cool Analysis
The speaker seems to be concerned about the community and tries to interpret the mind of one of the boys. The word "we" is repeated multiple times througout the poem which makes the reader assume that the boys have a group identity.
The speaker seems to be concerned about the community and tries to interpret the mind of one of the boys. The word "we" is repeated multiple times througout the poem which makes the reader assume that the boys have a group identity.
Safe in their Alabaster Chambers (124)
Safe in their Alabaster
Chambers -
Untouched by Morning -
and untouched by noon -
Sleep the meek members of the
Resurrection,
Rafter of Satin and Roof of
Stone -
Grand go the Years,
In the Crescent above them
-
Worlds scoop their Arcs
-
and Firmaments - row -
Diadems - drop -
And Doges surrender -
Soundless as Dots,
On a Disk of Snow.
Safe in their alabaster chamber Analysis
The speaker talks about death throughout the poem and tells the reader that no matter what you do in your lifetime; when you die you are nothing. The more of the poem that you read, the more you realize that the speaker is talking about the nature of death.
The speaker talks about death throughout the poem and tells the reader that no matter what you do in your lifetime; when you die you are nothing. The more of the poem that you read, the more you realize that the speaker is talking about the nature of death.
Mending Wall
Something there is that
doesn't love a wall,
That sends the
frozen-ground-swell under it,
And spills the upper boulders
in the sun;
And makes gaps even two can
pass abreast.
The work of hunters is another
thing:
I have come after them and
made repair
Where they have left not one
stone on a stone,
But they would have the rabbit
out of hiding,
To please the yelping dogs.
The gaps I mean,
No one has seen them made or
heard them made,
But at spring mending-time we
find them there.
I let my neighbour know beyond
the hill;
And on a day we meet to walk
the line
And set the wall between us
once again.
We keep the wall between us as
we go.
To each the boulders that have
fallen to each.
And some are loaves and some
so nearly balls
We have to use a spell to make
them balance:
"Stay where you are until our
backs are turned!"
We wear our fingers rough with
handling them.
Oh, just another kind of
out-door game,
One on a side. It comes to
little more:
There where it is we do not
need the wall:
He is all pine and I am apple
orchard.
My apple trees will never get
across
And eat the cones under his
pines, I tell him.
He only says, "Good fences
make good neighbours."
Spring is the mischief in me,
and I wonder
If I could put a notion in his
head:
"Why do they make
good neighbours? Isn't it
Where there are cows? But here
there are no cows.
Before I built a wall I'd ask
to know
What I was walling in or
walling out,
And to whom I was like to give
offence.
Something there is that
doesn't love a wall,
That wants it down." I could
say "Elves" to him,
But it's not elves exactly,
and I'd rather
He said it for himself. I see
him there
Bringing a stone grasped
firmly by the top
In each hand, like an
old-stone savage armed.
He moves in darkness as it
seems to me,
Not of woods only and the
shade of trees.
He will not go behind his
father's saying,
And he likes having thought of
it so well
He says again, "Good fences
make good neighbours."
Mending Wall Analysis
The theme of the poem is that the speaker blames nature for all the damages to the wall. As the poem progresses it is harder to understand the speaker's take on the wall.
To His Coy Mistress |
||
| By: Andrew Marvell | ||
Had we but world enough, and time,
This coyness, Lady, were no crime.
We would sit down and think which way
To walk and pass our long love's day.
Thou by the Indian Ganges' side
Shouldst rubies find: I by the tide
Of Humber would complain. I would
Love you ten years before the Flood,
And you should, if you please, refuse
Till the conversion of the Jews.
My vegetable love should grow
Vaster than empires, and more slow;
An hundred years should go to praise
Thine eyes and on thy forehead gaze;
Two hundred to adore each breast;
But thirty thousand to the rest;
An age at least to every part,
And the last age should show your heart;
For, Lady, you deserve this state,
Nor would I love at lower rate.
But at my back I always hear
Time's wingèd chariot hurrying near;
And yonder all before us lie
Deserts of vast eternity.
Thy beauty shall no more be found,
Nor, in thy marble vault, shall sound
My echoing song: then worms shall try
That long preserved virginity,
And your quaint honour turn to dust,
And into ashes all my lust:
The grave's a fine and private place,
But none, I think, do there embrace.
Now therefore, while the youthful hue
Sits on thy skin like morning dew,
And while thy willing soul transpires
At every pore with instant fires,
Now let us sport us while we may,
And now, like amorous birds of prey,
Rather at once our time devour
Than languish in his slow-chapt power.
Let us roll all our strength and all
Our sweetness up into one ball,
And tear our pleasures with rough strife
Thorough the iron gates of life:
Thus, though we cannot make our sun
Stand still, yet we will make him run.
His Coy Mistress Analysis
The speaker sounds very flattering when he describes the lady. He has a way with words and charms
the reader. Death is most likely a theme of the poem because a description of the afterlife recieves a
whole stanza.
Sources: (http://edsitement.neh.gov/feature/twenty-one-poems-ap-literature-and-composition#01)
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