The Giant Book of Poetry
Page 72
1 Form: Iambic pentameter, AABB end rhymes—Vocabulary: creed: formal statement of religious belief—Notes: This poem refers to a biblical story in which Jesus visits two sisters (Mary and Martha). One sees only his human form and spends her efforts being a host to his earthly needs. One sees in him God and, ignoring his earthly needs, listens to his teachings.
2 Form: Sonnet—Vocabulary: meekened: made meek.
1 Form: Iambic pentameter, irregular but frequent end rhymes—Vocabulary: unthwarted: unstopped—Notes: He cannot answer his own or other’s questions about what lies beyond the grave, other than to rely on faith he learned as a child from his mother.
2 Form: Anapestic, alternating tetrameter and trimeter, ABAB end rhymes—Vocabulary: billows: waves; bark: sailing ship; chaff: stems after seeds are removed; flail: manual threshing device—Notes: This poem looks at perspectives. From the perspective of the shore the boat moves between sun and shadow, while from the perspective of the boat’s pilot the boat moves between beacons (buoys) to avoid shoals and other sources of danger. Similarly, the narrator moves between goals which are internal, and the others looking from shore do not understand these goals and measure progress by different criteria. For example, the narrator’s goals may be related to writing poetry while the people on shore are critics. Another example would be the narrator’s goals being happiness in life while the people on shore are relatives measuring success by financial criteria.
1 Form: Anapestic lines 7 feet long (split here to 4-3), AAA end rhymes—Vocabulary: seraphs: type of angel; dissever: separate—Notes: The narrator’s childhood sweetheart died (probably of a fever), and the narrator continues to mourn next to her tomb by the sea.
1 Form: Anapestic dimeter xAxAxA end rhymes where the last two rhyming words are the same word.—Vocabulary: naphthalene: flammable product of coal tar—Notes: In this poem the narrator is dead, yet still thinks of his last moments with his love, Annie.
1 Form: Trochaic octameter, or as formatted here, trochaic tetrameter, AAxBCCCBxBB—Vocabulary: surcease: stop; obeisance: gesture of deference; mien: bearing or manner; Pallas: Greek goddess of wisdom and useful arts, guardian of Athens; shorn: clipped; craven: cowardly; Plutonian: related to the god Pluto, god of Hades; dirges: funeral lament; censer: container burning incense for religious festivals; Respite: short interval of relief; nepenthe: drug to reduce grief (Odyssey); quaff: drink; balm in Gilead: healing sap from shrub grown only in Palestine; Aidenn: heaven—Notes: The narrator, in his depression, is creating his own form of hell. He realizes early on that the bird only says one word, and then begins to pose Questions where that one word will contribute to his haunting depression.
1 Form: Iambic pentameter with some lines using other lengths for emphasis and rhythm, ABABCC end rhymes—Vocabulary: vex: annoy; plover: large, wading bird.
2 Form: Iambic tetrameter, ABAB end rhymes.
1 Form: Iambic trimeter but with a large number of lines starting with a trochee or headless iamb, mostly AAxxBB end rhymes—Notes: This poem describes an actual charge duringthe Crimean war in 1854.
1 Form: Iambic pentameter, AAB CCB DDB end rhymes where B is a repeated word—Vocabulary: aught: anything; rift: narrow opening or tear; lute: stringed instrument; garnered: gathered; molders: crumbles to dust.
1 Form: Iambic tetrameter, xAxAxA end rhymes—Vocabulary: Toccata: freestyle virtuoso for keyboard instrument; Galuppi Baldassare: Venetian composer; misconceive: misunderstand; Saint Mark: cathedral in Venice holding the bones of St. Mark; Doges: chief magistrate of Venice; Shylock’s bridge: famous pedestrian bridge over the main canal in Venice; clavichord: similar to a piano; lesser thirds, sixths diminished, suspensions, solutions, sevenths, dominants: musical terms referring to chords and chord progressions.
1 Form: Iambic tetrameter, ABCCBA end rhymes.
2 Form: Iambic pentameter, AABBCC … End rhymes—Vocabulary: Fra Pandolf: fictitious painter; officious: interfering; forsooth: in truth; munificence: generosity; Claus of Innsbruck: fictitious sculptor—Notes: the Duke had his wife killed because she took pleasures in simple things and treated all people with equal kindness, which meant that her attitude toward him and his gifts was not special and unique so he was insulted. Even worse, he killed her without ever telling her what was bothering him because the act of telling her would be stooping, something he refuses to do. He’s now impressing the emissary negotiating terms for his next wife, both showing off his possessions and also making clear his expectations for his new wife’s attitude.
1 Form: Iambic trimeter, irregular but frequent end rhymes—Notes: The story of a man who’s loved one (wife?) has died (the narrow house) and he is now being moved inexorably toward his own death in the near future so that he can be near her in the ground.
1 Form: Iambic tetrameter, ABABB end rhymes—Vocabulary: dissever: sever; oped: opened; tress: Long lock of hair—Notes: Like reading a Dean Koontz novel, we enter the mind of a madman. Here, the main character has a moment of wonderful, illicit and forbidden love with Porphyria. Porphyria is upper class, and has too much pride to have a true relationship with the narrator—but she gives in to passion occasionally and visits in the evening. To attempt to capture and retain that moment, he kills her and uses her corpse as a prop in his fantasy of a long term relationship.
1 Form: Iambic tetrameter, AABBCC… End rhymes—Vocabulary: avaunt: away; scourge: whip—Notes: The priest betrays the confidence of confession to capture, convict, and hang heretics, including the boyfriend of the woman who initially confessed to him. She writes this from prison, where she is presumably held to prevent her from telling the world what has happened.
1 Form: Iambic tetrameter, irregular but frequent end rhymes—Vocabulary: Brunswick: region in north central Germany; Corporation: The financial administration of the city; ditty: simple song; sprats: small fish; noddy: fool; ermine: weasel; Rouse: arise; guilder: unit of currency; kith and kin: kindred more or less remote; newt: salamander; viper: type of poisonous snake; vesture: clothing; old-fangled: gaudy in an old fashion; Tartary: region of eastern Europe and northern Asia; Cham: a Tartar or Mogul Kahn; Nizam: ruler of Hyderabad, India; tripe: lining of stomach used as food; psaltery: an ancient stringed instrument; drysaltery: preserved foods; nuncheon: light snack; puncheon: large cask (about 100 gallons); Claret, Moselle, Vin-de-Grave, Hock: types of wine; butt: a large cask holding about 126 gallons; Rhenish: a sweet Rhine wine; poke: sack; Bagdat: Baghdad; pottage: thick soup or stew; Caliph: leader of Arabic region; bate: reduce; stiver: a coin worth 1/20 of a guilder; ribald: vulgar, lewdly funny person; vesture: clothing; piebald: patches of bright colors; fallow: resting; burgher: citizen of a city; pate: head; tabor: small drum to accompany a pipe; hostelry: inn; trepanned: trapped.
1 Form: Ballad—Vocabulary: five pound: British pounds sterling; mince: finely chopped food; quince: a fruit; runcible: made up word, although since used by others as a kind of fork with three broad prongs or tines, one having a sharp edge, curved like a spoon, used with pickles, etc.
1 Form: Iambic tetrameter, ABAB end rhymes—Vocabulary: natal: birth; drear: dreary—Notes: The narrator looks down on those around her, and withdraws into her own world as a recluse. Now, no longer youthful or attractive, she realizes too late that the corruption in the world she was hiding from is equally present in her own mind.
1 Form: Ballad—Vocabulary: “hey for boot and horse”: Hello to traveling by foot and horse.
1 Form: Free verse—Notes: The poem deals with death and the subsequent liberation of the soul.
2 Form: Free verse—Vocabulary: moss: Spanish moss.
1 Form: Free verse.
2 Form: Mostly ballad meter with substitutions for emphasis, unrhymed—Vocabulary: trills: fluttering sound—Notes: Originally written about Lincoln after he was assassinated. The ship refers to the Union after the civil war (the ship of state). However, the metaphor works for any situation where the leader is successful but does not live to see their success.
1 Form: Free verse—Vocabulary: onanist: masturbator; peculation: embezzlement; literat: literati.
1 Form: Free verse—Vocabulary: distempered: an animal disease; mould: earth of a grave; visage: face.
1 Form: Free verse.
1 Form: Alternating iambic pentameter and iambic tetrameter, ABAB end rhymes—Vocabulary: Carrion: dead, decaying flesh; procreative: generated; winnowing: separate grain from chaff; moldering: crumbling to dust—Notes: Charles is commenting on the fact that his lovely companion’s flesh will one day be as rotted as the carcass they saw along the path.
1 Form: Free verse.
1 Form: Free verse.
2 Form: Free verse.
3 Form: Iambic tetrameter, ABBA end rhymes—Vocabulary: Heautontimoroumenos: Latin—the self-tormentor—Notes: Charles died of complications from syphilis. Perhaps the reference to poison blood is related to this.
1 Form: Iambic hexameter, AABBCC… End rhymes—Vocabulary: tresses: long locks of hair; wan: unnaturally pale.
1 Form: Iambic pentameter, ABAB end rhymes—Vocabulary: grimalkin: an old and female cat; dropsical: suffering from edema (swelling); sinistrously: sinisterly.
1 Form: Iambic pentameter, AABBCC … End rhymes—Vocabulary: chrysalides: protected as in a cocoon; languor: listlessness; Lazarus: man raised from the dead by Jesus; shroud:burial cloth; virulence: extremely infectious, poisonous, or malignant.
1 Form: Iambic tetrameter, AABB end rhymes—Notes: A nice ghost story, but also a metaphor for many problem relationships.
2 Form: Iambic tetrameter, ABAB end rhymes—Vocabulary: sodden: soaked; shroud: burial cloth; cur: mongrel dog; dray: cart; incontinent: uncontrolled.
1 Form: Sonnet—Vocabulary: Pascal: French mathematician, philosopher and inventor; abysmal: unfathomable; torpor: lethargy—Notes: Strong imagery time centered around two perspectives of an abyss (Pascal’s pit versus sleep, described as a “monstrous hole”). Note the use of “abysmal” to contribute to the sense of the poem. The narrator longs for death as the only possible escape.
1 Form: Iambic tetrameter, ABAB end rhymes—Vocabulary: phial: vial—Notes: We’ve all at least witnessed a love that was self-destructive, in which the victim could not escape. In this case, even if the victim tried to escape by killing his “love” his subsequent kisses would revive her.
1 Form: Iambic, irregular line lengths, irregular end rhymes—Vocabulary: counters: tokens; bluebells: type of flower—Notes: The child clinging to worthless toys but obtaining the father’s forgiveness is compared with adults clinging to worthless worldly goods but assured of forgiveness by God.
1 Form: Iambic tetrameter, AABB end rhymes—Vocabulary: blandishments: flattery.
2 Form: Iambic trimeter with tetrameter for line 3 of each stanza. xAxA slant rhyme—Notes: A deed starts as an idea, where it is manufactured and refined. It is then either acted on, or not, and if not only God knows that it ever existed.
1 Form: Mostly iambic trimeter with a few lines of iambic tetrameter, irregular slant end rhymes—Notes: Observations about snakes.
1 Form: Iambic, 2-2-1 pattern xxA xxA end rhyme pattern.
2 Form: Free verse with irregular slant rhyme—Notes: A description of grief with the perceived slowing of time and movement, and then the comparison of the stages of grief with stages of freezing to death.
3 Form: Ballad meter—Notes: The death of innocent things (flowers) through natural occurrences (frost). The last line may be read literally as God endorsing the natural death, or ironically as Questioning God’s awareness and involvement in this death.
1 Form: Ballad meter—Vocabulary: Gossamer: soft gauzy fabric; Tippet: covering for the shoulders; Tulle: fine net of silk—Notes: The narrator is busy throughout life, so death stops for her and carries her to her final resting place in the cemetery. In route they metaphorically pass a lifetime (childhood, grain as middle-age, and setting-sun as death). Now, the narrator lives in a tomb through the centuries.
1 Form: Mostly ballad meter.
1 Form: Mostly ballad meter—Notes: The narrator dies, and in spite of logic (reason) finds herself falling to an afterlife. Notice how it ends with suspense, as if the narrator is telling us about the experience but a line is crossed beyond which she is unable to communicate back to the world of the living.
2 Form: Ballad meter—Notes: This may be interpreted as the discovery of religion, not just in nature but in a more formal church setting.
1 Form: Ballad—Notes: The narrator is dying the perfect death. Her loved ones are around her, she bequeaths her most precious objects to people, and then … everything is ruined as a fly intrudes and becomes the last thing she is aware of before dying.
1 Form: Mostly iambic trimeter but with some tetrameter lines in ballad form.—Vocabulary: supercilious: haughty disdain; shanties: shacks; pare: shave down; Boanerges: a loud orator—Notes: This poem is an image- rich description of a steam locomotive.
1 Form: Ballad—Vocabulary: Rhine: area of Germany known for wine; Inebriate: intoxicated; Debauchee: morally unrestrained person; drams: a small amount as of alcohol; Seraphs: type of angel.
1 Form: Free verse—Vocabulary: Bog: wetland area.
2 Form: Iambic, varying line lengths—Notes: The transient nature of the beauty of a sky (perhaps with clouds) is compared to the transient nature of a traveling circus.
1 Form: Ballad—Notes: Seeing someone die and leave us is the closest we get to seeing heaven (that is, they have just left for heaven), but also the closest we get to understanding hell.
2 Form: Iambic, 3-3-4-3 pattern—Notes: The narrator’s life was occupied with the care of the invalid (mother?), and after her death the grief and void created a sense of time going by slowly and painfully.
1 Form: Mostly iambic trimeter with a few lines of iambic tetrameter—Vocabulary: Auger: hand tool for boring holes—Notes: A metaphor for any situation of development with support until the support is no longer needed. This could be read as a religious awakening by Emily.
2 Form: Ballad.
1 Form: Irregular meter, but iambic trimeter dominates—Notes: A description of a violent storm, but concluding that the world goes on. Doom’s electric moccasin is lightning. Fences are blown (flee) before the wind. Houses are washed down rivers.
1 Form: Irregular meter, mostly iambic trimeter and tetrameter—Vocabulary: Heft: weight.
1 Form: Iambic, irregular line lengths—Vocabulary: revery: light-headed dreaming.
2 Form: Iambic, irregular line lengths—Notes: This poem describes the process of dealing with grief and loss.
1 Form: Dimeter, roughly equal number of trochees and iambs.
2 Form: Iambic, irregular line lengths, irregular but frequent end rhymes—Vocabulary: bullaces: type of plum; greengages: variety of plum; Damsons: type of plum; bilberries:blueberry; barberries: berry from an ornamental shrub; Citrons: lemon-like fruit; wombat: similar to a small bear; beck: small brook; whisk: sweeping; purloin: steal; cloy: be too filling, rich, or sweet; stone: hard covering containing the seed; upbraidings: rapprochements; bowers: shady recess; Pellucid: translucent; mead: meadow; succous: fluid excreted by living tissue; balked: thwarted; waxed: increased in size; drouth: drought; cankerous: ulcerous; rime: thin coating of ice; heath: uncultivated open land; furze: evergreen shrub with fragrant yellow flowers; gobbling: eating greedily; Demure: modest; Ratel: similar to a badger; Panniers: saddle-bags; pates: tops of their heads; obstreperously: aggressively; hoary: white or grey with age; scudded: ran before a gale with no sail; copse: thicket of small trees; dingle: small wooded valley; gibe: jeer; wormwood: a bitter plant; flagging: weakening—Notes: The primary lesson is siblings supporting each other. The poem also includes a warning against the temptations of evil, and could be read in a modern context as a metaphorical anti-drug message. Some have found hints at lesbian ideas in the poem.
1 Form: Sonnet—Vocabulary: vestige: evidence.