anthology of poetry: love & hate

8/12/2019 Anthology of Poetry: Love & Hate

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Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night by Dylan Thomas

Do not go gentle into that good night,Old age should burn and rave at close of day;Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,Because their words had forked no lightning theyDo not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how brightTheir frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,

Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sightBlind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on that sad height,Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.Do not go gentle into that good night.Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

The theme of this poem is simple, and it can be clearly seen in nearly everyaspect of life as we know it: dont give up. The speaker in the poem is preaching howyou should fight death with a burning rage, and not allow death to take you away fromeverything you love so quickly. He is speaking to his father, who is dying, and he doesnot want him to give up, but his father is old and has reached the end of his life. There isa difference of opinion between the speaker and his father; the speaker wants his fatherto stay with him and continue living, but his father knows that the end is near and isgripped by deaths peace with a will not to fight it. The shift in this poem occurs in thelast stanza, when the speaker lets us know that this poem is about his father, and thespeakers voice fades into sadness as, presumably, his father passes.

While this poem is about not giving up to death, its theme holds value tocircumstances other than dying. The author is trying to teach people to never give up,no matter how nice it may seem just to let go. The poem has a rhyming scheme, inwhich every other line rhymes, and uses a lot of descriptive language to allow thereader to envision and feel the emotions of rage and death that the author is attemptingto express.

Photo credit Jake A. Glass


3/11

The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,And sorry I could not travel bothAnd be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I couldTo 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 thereHad worn them really about the same,And both that morning equally layIn 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 sighSomewhere 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.

The theme of this poem is that sometimes, it is best to follow the pack, and not togo off on your own. In it, the speaker reflects on how he made the wrong decision at afork in the road one day. He chose the more appealing road, the one that had seen less

travelers and that was less worn from people passing. Presently, he regrets hisdecision, because it has drastically changed his current life for the worse.

There is an inconsistent rhyming scheme in this poem, and it is a narrative poem.The main shift in the poem happens in the 16th line of the poem, when the speakerturns away from reflecting on his past misguidance and speaks in the future. I chosethis poem because it shows what many social challenges people face today.Sometimes, its best to stick with everyone else and follow the rest of the group, but itmay also be best to go off on your own occasionally.


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A poison Tree by William Blake

I was angry with my friend;I told my wrath, my wrath did end.I was angry with my foe:

I told it not, my wrath did grow.

And I waterd it in fears,Night & morning with my tears:And I sunned it with smiles,And with soft deceitful wiles.

And it grew both day and night,Till it bore an apple bright.And my foe beheld it shine,And he knew that it was mine.

And into my garden stole.When the night had veiled the pole;In the morning glad I see,My foe outstretchd beneath the tree.

The theme of this poem is that you should not let your anger or hatred fester andboil inside of you until it becomes deadly. In the poem, he author becomes angry withhis friend, and his anger grows into a figurative apple tree, which his friend sees andsteals an apple from. It is a poison apple, and therefore his friend dies, having eaten it.This poem appeals to me because of how often I find myself connected with this theme

in real life. Sometimes, your emotions of jealousy or anger become so strong that youjust have to sit down, calm down, and let those feelings go, before you do somethingthat you cant take back, like what the author did in this poem. This poem has a very apparent rhyming pattern, with each line rhyming with theline below it. Its written from the first-person point of view, with a very manic tone, asthe author has obviously gone mad with his feelings toward his companion. The authoruses personification by symbolizing his wrath with a tree, which he waterd...infears...with [his] tears and sunned...with smiles. The fact that he sunned it implies thatthe speaker allowed his wrath to flourish, instead of merely growing. One very importantkey notes to this poem is that at first, the author calls the subject of the poem hisfriend, but by the end of the poem, when the subject is dead, the author bills him as

his foe. Blake writes in old-English, but that is simply because he wrote this poem in1794.


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I know why the caged bird sings by Maya Angelou

A free bird leaps on the backOf the wind and floats downstreamTill the current ends and dips his wingIn the orange suns raysAnd dares to claim the sky.

But a BIRD that stalks down his narrow cageCan seldom see through his bars of rageHis wings are clipped and his feet are tiedSo he opens his throat to sing.

The caged bird sings with a fearful trillOf things unknown but longed for stillAnd his tune is heard on the distant hill forThe caged bird sings of freedom.

The free bird thinks of another breezeAnd the trade winds soft throughThe sighing treesAnd the fat worms waiting on a dawn-brightLawn and he names the sky his own.

But a caged BIRD stands on the grave of dreamsHis shadow shouts on a nightmare screamHis wings are clipped and his feet are tiedSo he opens his throat to sing.

The caged bird sings withA fearful trill of things unknownBut longed for still and hisTune is heard on the distant hill

For the caged bird sings of freedom.This poem expresses the lesson that you should not take what you have for

granted, and that no one can truly realize and appreciate the greatness of what theyhave until its gone. The author personifies songbirds with human emotions. A cagedbird is sorrowful, and philosophizes and longs sadly with his freedom-seeking song. Onthe other hand, a free bird is carefree, and flies happily, knowing that he has everything

that he needs. Basically, people that can truly make a difference are the ones that havesuffered hardship, and those that know what its like to long for justice and freedom. Wecan see this theme in the lives of many famous historical figures that have made adifference in numerous peoples lives today, most prominently in advocates for rightsmovements throughout history, both past and present. This poem takes the reader onan emotional roller-coaster of empathy, teaching of sadness, hope, cruelty, and evendeath, and shows what kind of determination and suffering is required to achievefreedom for all people.


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If by e.e. cummings

If freckles were lovely, and day was night,And measles were nice and a lie warn't a lie,Life would be delight,-

But things couldn't go rightFor in such a sad plightI wouldn't be I.

If earth was heaven, and now was hence,And past was present, and false was true,There might be some senseBut I'd be in suspenseFor on such a pretenseYou wouldn't be you.

If fear was plucky, and globes were square,And dirt was cleanly and tears were gleeThings would seem fair,-Yet they'd all despair,For if here was thereWe wouldn't be we.

The theme of this e.e. cummings poem is that everything is the way that it is for areason, and that if you wish for something to change in an impossible way, you have torealize how counterintuitive your desire really is. The speaker is talking to the reader,you, to show that God made the world the way it is for a reason, and that if you were to

change one thing, nothing else would make any sense. This piece has a rhymingscheme, and employs opposites to make the writing more interesting to the reader.Another theme that may be interpreted from this poem is that you cant change anythingabout yourself without losing who you really are inside. You must be who you really areand show your true self instead of trying to change it; God made you who you are, andyou cantand dont need tochange who you are for any reason.


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Fast rode the knight by Stephen Crane

Fast rode the knightWith spurs, hot and reeking,Ever waving an eager sword,

"To save my lady!"Fast rode the knIght,And leaped from saddle to war.Men of steel flickered and gleamedLike riot of silver lights,And the gold of the knight's good bannerStill waved on a castle wall.. . . . .A horse,Blowing, staggering, bloody thing,Forgotten at foot of castle wall.

A horseDead at foot of castle wall.

This poem is about determination and courage in the face of danger or war, andthat dying a noble death for your just cause is sometimes okay. In the poem, a horse-riding knight runs into battle, only to be killed. The obvious shift in the poem starts online 11, when the ellipses signal a passing of time, and the omniscient narratortransitions to a view of the knights horse, dying (and dead) at the foot of the castle wall.From this, we can draw that the knight has died and has lost his battle. Crane, theauthor, uses vivid imagery and similes to put the reader directly into the middle of thebattle, as you can see in the 7th and 8th lines of the poem.

This poem is interesting, because the author writes it in a way that uses thesymbol of the dying horse to show the death of the knight, as a knight and his horse arevery good companions. The reader becomes quite attached to the horse and sufferswith him in his death, having been fighting to his last step, and the horse dies a nobledeath of honor, having fought for his cause, almost as surely as the knight did.


9/11

Funeral Blues by W. H. Auden

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone.Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,Silence the pianos and with muffled drum

Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overheadScribbling in the sky the message He is Dead,Put crpe bows round the white necks of the public doves,Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

He was my North, my South, my East and West,My working week and my Sunday restMy noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;I thought that love would last forever, I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now; put out every one,Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun.Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood;For nothing now can ever come to any good.

In this poem, the author is grieving for a friend that has recently passed away. Hewants to stop everyone, everywhere, so that all of the focus is on him, his grief, and thelegacy of his dead friend. When you read the poem, you can empathize with the author,knowing exactly how he feels about a lost companion, but looking at it from someoneelses view makes it sound silly. The speaker wants everything happening to stop to

focus on him, and thats really quite selfish, but we all feel the same way in his place,and the reader realizes that. The theme of the poem is that while you may feel terribleemotions of sadness and feel, for a moment, that everything must simply disappear orstop to feel the same horrible emotions, you are wrong; life must go on, and it can goon. Each pair of lines in this poem rhyme with each other. The author uses metaphors toshow the reader how important this person was to him, and that his life will never be thesame without it. If you read more deeply into the theme of this poem, it is almost a satire, as ishinted in lines 13-15: The stars are not wanted now; put out every one... It might be asatirical piece because the author is poking fun at the idea that everything should stopto commemorate one death; and he may very well be correct, as long as the deceased

was not his friend.


10/11

The Bells-A collaboration -Edgar Allan Poe

The bells! ah, the bells!The little silver bells!How fairy-like a melody there floats

From their throats.From their merry little throatsFrom the silver, tinkling throatsOf the bells, bells, bellsOf the bells!

The bells! ah, the bells!The heavy iron bells!How horrible a monody there floatsFrom their throatsFrom their deep-toned throats

From their melancholy throats!How I shudder at the notesOf the bells, bells, bellsOf the bells!

This poem is about the sounds of bells ringing. The author, Poe, usespersonification to make the bells seem like living creatures with feelings, as if the soundof their ringing were the songs of their emotions ringing out to the world. His descriptivelanguage and imagery allows the reader to hear the deep, emotional sounds of the bellsin their imagination. There is a rhyming scheme in this poem, but it is inconsistent, since

most of the words are the same words repeated over and over for most of the lines ofthe poem. In writing the poem, I think the author wanted to highlight the differencebetween the two types of bells that he wrote about; the little silver bells are happychurch bells, whereas the heavy iron bells are funeral bells to mourn for someonesdeath.

Another interesting thing is how the author feels about the different types of bells,the sounds they make and what they ring for. By the authors feelings towards thefuneral bells, it would seem that he enjoys the sadness and depression thataccompanies the deep, regretful, and rich tones of the bells.


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A Brook In The City by Robert Frost

The farmhouse lingers, though averse to squareWith the new city street it has to wearA number in. But what about the brook

That held the house as in an elbow-crook?I ask as one who knew the brook, its strengthAnd impulse, having dipped a finger lengthAnd made it leap my knuckle, having tossedA flower to try its currents where they crossed.The meadow grass could be cemented downFrom growing under pavements of a town;The apple trees be sent to hearth-stone flame.Is water wood to serve a brook the same?How else dispose of an immortal forceNo longer needed? Staunch it at its source

With cinder loads dumped down? The brook was thrownDeep in a sewer dungeon under stoneIn fetid darkness still to live and run --And all for nothing it had ever doneExcept forget to go in fear perhaps.No one would know except for ancient mapsThat such a brook ran water. But I wonderIf from its being kept forever under,The thoughts may not have risen that so keepThis new-built city from both work and sleep.

This poem is about the development and destruction of nature to make way forthe building of cities. The author explains how they have paved over the grass and cutdown the trees, but they cannot truly get rid of a river; they just build the city over it.Frost personifies the river as if it had feelings, and with his omniscient narration hemakes the reader empathize with the river, so we can truly imagine what the world thispoem is detailing is like.

I chose this poem because I really feel that it reflects modern society, whereeveryone thinks that humans are better than nature, and that we have the right to dowhatever we want with it or to it. Its also interesting for the reader to compare andcontrast, or try to imagine, what the land that theyre on presently might have looked likebefore it was developed, and to consider what had to be removed to allow for the

development of this land. Additionally, the author leaves you with a curiosity to whetherthe natural world will ever be returned to its former glory, back from a time before it wasdeveloped. The end of this poem leaves the reader with the thought, What if naturedoeshave feelings?

anthology of poetry: love & hate

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