Link to poetry.org section on sonnets: https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poems?field_form_tid=424
Part I - Overview of Metaphysical Poetry & John Donne
John Donne was born in 1572 in London, England. He is known as the founder of the Metaphysical Poets, a term created by Samuel Johnson, an eighteenth-century English essayist, poet, and philosopher. His wife, aged thirty-three, died in 1617 shortly after giving birth to their twelfth child, a stillborn. The Holy Sonnets are also attributed to this phase of his life.
The term "metaphysical poetry" is used to describe a certain type of 17th century poetry. The term was originally intended to be derogatory; Dryden, who said Donne "affects the metaphysics," was criticizing Donne for being too arcane. Samuel Johnson later used the term "metaphysical poetry" to describe the specific poetic method used by poets like Donne.
Metaphysical poets are generally in rebellion against the highly conventional imagery of the Elizabethan lyric. The poems tend to be intellectually complex, and (according to the Holman Handbook), "express honestly, if unconventionally, the poet's sense of the complexities and contradictions of life." The verse often sounds rough in comparison to the smooth conventions of other poets; Ben Jonson once said that John Donne "deserved hanging" for the way he ran roughshod over conventional rhythms. The result is that these poems often lack lyric smoothness, but they instead use a rugged irregular movement that seems to suit the content of the poems.
For an example of metaphysical rebellion against lyrical convention, one can look at Donne's Holly Sonnet VI, below.
"Holy Sonnet VI"
by John Donne, 1610
Death, be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so,
For those, whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow,
Die not, poor death, nor yet canst thou kill me.
From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be,
Much pleasure, then from thee much more must flow,
And soonest our best men with thee do go,
Rest of their bones, and soul's deliverie.
Thou'rt slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poyson, war, and sickness dwell,
And poppy, or charms can make us sleep as well,
And better than thy stroke; why swell'st thou then ?
One short sleep past, we wake eternally,
And death shall be no more, Death thou shalt die.
The poem personifies death through an extended metaphor. It speaks to death as if poking fun at its history of being known as “mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so” according to the narrator. The speaker even goes so far as to say “nor canst thou kill me.” This ends the first stanza and is much more interesting and off putting than “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day” or Let me not to the marriage of true minds” by Shakespeare.
That the punctuation is just as vital to the meaning of the work. In addition to challenging the conventions of rhythm, the metaphysical poets also challenged conventional imagery. Their tool for doing this was the metaphysical conceit. A conceit is a poetic idea, usually a metaphor. There can be conventional ideas, where there are expected metaphors: Petrarchan conceits imitate the metaphors used by the Italian poet Petrarch. Metaphysical conceits are noteworthy specifically for their lack of conventionality. In general, the metaphysical conceit will use some sort of shocking or unusual comparison as the basis for the metaphor. When it works, a metaphysical conceit has a startling appropriateness that makes us look at something in an entirely new way.
In the sonnet above, he last line is what does it for me, though and it was utilized brilliantly in Maraget Edison’s Wit.
Some editions of the text present the last line as follows:
And Death shall be no more; Death thou shalt die!
In the Gardner edition, it is presented as follows:
And death shall be no more, Death thou shalt die.
As stated in Edison’s play “Nothing but a breath. A comma separates life from eternal life.” Therefore, the metaphysical conceit of the sonnet is that when you die you live forever.
"Holy Sonnet IV"
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This is my play's last scene; here heavens appoint
My pilgrimage's last mile, and my race
Idly, yet quickly run, hath this last pace,
My span's last inch, my minute's latest point,
And gluttonous death will instantly unjoint
My body and soul, and I shall sleep a space,
But my ever-waking part shall see that face,
Whose fear already shakes my every joint.
Then, as my soul to heaven her first seat takes flight,
And earth-born body in the earth shall dwell,
So fall my sins, that all may have their right,
To where they're bred and would press me to hell.
Impute me righteous, thus purged of evil,
For thus I leave the world, the flesh, the devil.
Part II - Modern Sonnets
"Sonnet XLIII"
Death, be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so,
For those, whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow,
Die not, poor death, nor yet canst thou kill me.
From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be,
Much pleasure, then from thee much more must flow,
And soonest our best men with thee do go,
Rest of their bones, and soul's deliverie.
Thou'rt slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poyson, war, and sickness dwell,
And poppy, or charms can make us sleep as well,
And better than thy stroke; why swell'st thou then ?
One short sleep past, we wake eternally,
And death shall be no more, Death thou shalt die.
The poem personifies death through an extended metaphor. It speaks to death as if poking fun at its history of being known as “mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so” according to the narrator. The speaker even goes so far as to say “nor canst thou kill me.” This ends the first stanza and is much more interesting and off putting than “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day” or Let me not to the marriage of true minds” by Shakespeare.
That the punctuation is just as vital to the meaning of the work. In addition to challenging the conventions of rhythm, the metaphysical poets also challenged conventional imagery. Their tool for doing this was the metaphysical conceit. A conceit is a poetic idea, usually a metaphor. There can be conventional ideas, where there are expected metaphors: Petrarchan conceits imitate the metaphors used by the Italian poet Petrarch. Metaphysical conceits are noteworthy specifically for their lack of conventionality. In general, the metaphysical conceit will use some sort of shocking or unusual comparison as the basis for the metaphor. When it works, a metaphysical conceit has a startling appropriateness that makes us look at something in an entirely new way.
In the sonnet above, he last line is what does it for me, though and it was utilized brilliantly in Maraget Edison’s Wit.
Some editions of the text present the last line as follows:
And Death shall be no more; Death thou shalt die!
In the Gardner edition, it is presented as follows:
And death shall be no more, Death thou shalt die.
As stated in Edison’s play “Nothing but a breath. A comma separates life from eternal life.” Therefore, the metaphysical conceit of the sonnet is that when you die you live forever.
"Holy Sonnet IV"
by John Donne, 1610
If poysonous minerals, and if that tree,
Whose fruit threw death on else immortal us,
If lecherous goats, if serpents envious
Cannot be damn'd, Alas ! why should I be?
Why should intent or reason, born in me,
Make sins, else equal, in me more heinous?
And, mercy being easie, and glorious
To God, in his stern wrath why threatens hee?
But who am I, that dare dispute with thee?
O God, Oh! of thine only worthy blood,
And my teares, make a heavenly Lethean flood,
And drown in it my sinnes blacke memorie.
That thou remember them, some claime as debt,
I thinke it mercy if thou wilt forget.
"Holy Sonnet X"
If poysonous minerals, and if that tree,
Whose fruit threw death on else immortal us,
If lecherous goats, if serpents envious
Cannot be damn'd, Alas ! why should I be?
Why should intent or reason, born in me,
Make sins, else equal, in me more heinous?
And, mercy being easie, and glorious
To God, in his stern wrath why threatens hee?
But who am I, that dare dispute with thee?
O God, Oh! of thine only worthy blood,
And my teares, make a heavenly Lethean flood,
And drown in it my sinnes blacke memorie.
That thou remember them, some claime as debt,
I thinke it mercy if thou wilt forget.
"Holy Sonnet X"
by John Donne, 1610
My pilgrimage's last mile, and my race
Idly, yet quickly run, hath this last pace,
My span's last inch, my minute's latest point,
And gluttonous death will instantly unjoint
My body and soul, and I shall sleep a space,
But my ever-waking part shall see that face,
Whose fear already shakes my every joint.
Then, as my soul to heaven her first seat takes flight,
And earth-born body in the earth shall dwell,
So fall my sins, that all may have their right,
To where they're bred and would press me to hell.
Impute me righteous, thus purged of evil,
For thus I leave the world, the flesh, the devil.
Part II - Modern Sonnets
"Sonnet XLIII"
by Edna St. Vincent Millay, 1956
What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why,
Applauding youths laughed with young prostitutes
I have forgotten, and what arms have lain
Under my head till morning; but the rain
Is full of ghosts tonight, that tap and sigh
Upon the glass and listen for reply,
And in my heart there stirs a quiet pain
For unremembered lads that not again
Will turn to me at midnight with a cry.
Thus in winter stands the lonely tree,
Nor knows what birds have vanished one by one,
Yet knows its boughs more silent than before:
I cannot say what loves have come and gone,
I only know that summer sang in me
A little while, that in me sings no more.
"Florida Doll Sonnet"
by Denise Duhamel, 1961
I love Fresh Market but always feel underdressed
squeezing overpriced limes. Louis Vuitton,
Gucci, Fiorucci, and all the ancient East Coast girls
with their scarecrow limbs and Joker grins.
Their silver fox husbands, rosy from tanning beds,
steady their ladies who shuffle along in Miu Miu’s
(not muumuus) and make me hide behind towers
of handmade soaps and white pistachios. Who
knew I’d still feel like the high school fat girl
some thirty-odd years later? My Birkenstocks
and my propensity for fig newtons? Still, whenever
I’m face to face with a face that is no more real
than a doll’s, I try to love my crinkles, my saggy
chin skin. My body organic, with no preservatives.
"The Harlem Dancer"
by Denise Duhamel, 1961
I love Fresh Market but always feel underdressed
squeezing overpriced limes. Louis Vuitton,
Gucci, Fiorucci, and all the ancient East Coast girls
with their scarecrow limbs and Joker grins.
Their silver fox husbands, rosy from tanning beds,
steady their ladies who shuffle along in Miu Miu’s
(not muumuus) and make me hide behind towers
of handmade soaps and white pistachios. Who
knew I’d still feel like the high school fat girl
some thirty-odd years later? My Birkenstocks
and my propensity for fig newtons? Still, whenever
I’m face to face with a face that is no more real
than a doll’s, I try to love my crinkles, my saggy
chin skin. My body organic, with no preservatives.
"The Harlem Dancer"
by Claude McKay, 1922
Applauding youths laughed with young prostitutes
And watched her perfect, half-clothed body sway;
Her voice was like the sound of blended flutes
Blown by black players upon a picnic day.
She sang and danced on gracefully and calm,
The light gauze hanging loose about her form;
To me she seemed a proudly-swaying palm
Grown lovelier for passing through a storm.
Upon her swarthy neck black shiny curls
Luxuriant fell; and tossing coins in praise,
The wine-flushed, bold-eyed boys, and even the girls,
Devoured her shape with eager, passionate gaze;
But looking at her falsely-smiling face,
I knew her self was not in that strange place.
"Ever"
"Ever"
by Meghan O'Rourke, 2015
Never, never, never, never, never.
—King Lear
Even now I can’t grasp “nothing” or “never.”
They’re unholdable, unglobable, no map to nothing.
Never? Never ever again to see you?
An error, I aver. You’re never nothing,
because nothing’s not a thing.
I know death is absolute, forever,
the guillotine—gutting—never to which we never say goodbye.
But even as I think “forever” it goes “ever”
and “ever” and “ever.” Ever after.
I’m a thing that keeps on thinking. So I never see you
is not a thing or think my mouth can ever. Aver:
You’re not “nothing.” But neither are you something.
Will I ever really get never?
You’re gone. Nothing, never—ever.
"Superheroes as 2004 Volkswagen Passat: A Double Sonnet"
by Bruce Covey, 2012
The Invisible Woman is the windshield.
Never, never, never, never, never.
—King Lear
Even now I can’t grasp “nothing” or “never.”
They’re unholdable, unglobable, no map to nothing.
Never? Never ever again to see you?
An error, I aver. You’re never nothing,
because nothing’s not a thing.
I know death is absolute, forever,
the guillotine—gutting—never to which we never say goodbye.
But even as I think “forever” it goes “ever”
and “ever” and “ever.” Ever after.
I’m a thing that keeps on thinking. So I never see you
is not a thing or think my mouth can ever. Aver:
You’re not “nothing.” But neither are you something.
Will I ever really get never?
You’re gone. Nothing, never—ever.
"Superheroes as 2004 Volkswagen Passat: A Double Sonnet"
by Bruce Covey, 2012
The Invisible Woman is the windshield.
Mr. Fantastic is the wiper fluid.
The Thing is the tire.
The Human Torch is the spark plug.
Spiderman is the antenna.
Storm is the ignition coil.
Rogue is the crank shaft.
The Punisher is the exhaust pipe.
Captain America is the hub cap.
Quicksilver is the oil.
Rogue is the gasoline.
Psylocke is the catalytic converter.
The Hulk is the cylinder block.
She Hulk is the mount.
Mantis is the manifold.
Ms. Marvel is the muffler.
The Scarlet Witch is the instrument panel.
Iceman is the cooling system.
Wolverine is the hood.
Colossus is the camshaft.
Banshee is the horn.
Polaris is the voltage regulator.
Silver Surfer is the rearview mirror.
Powerman is the bearing.
Phoenix is the powertrain.
Emma Frost is the hinge pillar.
The Vision is the fuse box.
Black Widow is the brake.
Peyton Levental
ReplyDeleteThe courage that my mother had
Edna St. Vincent Millay, 1892 - 1950
The courage that my mother had
Went with her, and is with her still:
Rock from New England quarried;
Now granite in a granite hill.
The golden brooch my mother wore
She left behind for me to wear;
I have no thing I treasure more:
Yet, it is something I could spare.
Oh, if instead she’d left to me
The thing she took into the grave!—
That courage like a rock, which she
Has no more need of, and I have.
In this sonnet it has three quarantines. It has more of a sentimental feeling. It talks about the characters mothers death and how it effects them. I would make a comparison of my sonnet with the other sonnet called "Ever" by Meghan O'Rourke, 2015, because they both talk about death and loss. They say in "Ever", "Never ever again to see you?" which reminded me of my sonnet and how there mother died and they can never see her again. They can only remember her by the Brooch that she gave them. I personally liked this sonnet because it includes New England and I felt like I could really understand what pain the character was going through.
Drew Wachtel
ReplyDelete"Florida Doll Sonnet"
by Denise Duhamel, 1961
I love Fresh Market but always feel underdressed
squeezing overpriced limes. Louis Vuitton,
Gucci, Fiorucci, and all the ancient East Coast girls
with their scarecrow limbs and Joker grins.
Their silver fox husbands, rosy from tanning beds,
steady their ladies who shuffle along in Miu Miu’s
(not muumuus) and make me hide behind towers
of handmade soaps and white pistachios. Who
knew I’d still feel like the high school fat girl
some thirty-odd years later? My Birkenstocks
and my propensity for fig newtons? Still, whenever
I’m face to face with a face that is no more real
than a doll’s, I try to love my crinkles, my saggy
chin skin. My body organic, with no preservatives.
I like this poem because I was fascinated by how 1960s had a lot of similarities to what we are now. This poem also shows how people thought the same way that we do now. Since I was not born in the 20th century I liked how this poem showed us what it was like in Florida back in the 1960s. Another reason why I liked this poem is that Florida is my favorite place to travel to and I realised that Florida hasn’t really changed from the 1960s to now. A poem that I can compare this to is "Superheroes as 2004 Volkswagen Passat: A Double Sonnet" by Bruce Covey, 2012 because they are both informational poems that tell us something that I am not that familiar with for example I am not familiar with what went down in Florida in the 1960s nor am I familiar with marvel super heroes.
Rene Roustand
ReplyDeleteI shall forget you presently, my dear,
So make the most of this, your little day,
Your little month, your little half a year
Ere I forget, or die, or move away,
And we are done forever; by and by
I shall forget you, as I said, but now,
If you entreat me with your loveliest lie
I will protest you with my favorite vow.
I would indeed that love were longer-lived,
And vows were not so brittle as they are,
But so it is, and nature has contrived
To struggle on without a break thus far,—
Whether or not we find what we are seeking
Is idle, biologically speaking.
This sonnet takes a sad approach. A man broke up with his lover, and they both went their seperate ways. It's never good having to break up with your girlfriend or getting a divorce from your wife. So whenever you get married when you're older, tell your loved one, "I will be by your side forever. Nothing will tear us apart!"
Abhi Sharma
ReplyDeleteNovember
Edward Thomas, 1878 - 1917
November’s days are thirty:
November’s earth is dirty,
Those thirty days, from first to last;
And the prettiest thing on ground are the paths
With morning and evening hobnails dinted,
With foot and wing-tip overprinted
Or separately charactered,
Of little beast and little bird.
The fields are mashed by sheep, the roads
Make the worst going, the best the woods
Where dead leaves upward and downward scatter.
Few care for the mixture of earth and water,
Twig, leaf, flint, thorn,
Straw, feather, all that men scorn,
Pounded up and sodden by flood,
Condemned as mud.
But of all the months when earth is greener
Not one has clean skies that are cleaner.
Clean and clear and sweet and cold,
They shine above the earth so old,
While the after-tempest cloud
Sails over in silence though winds are loud,
Till the full moon in the east
Looks at the planet in the west
And earth is silent as it is black,
Yet not unhappy for its lack.
Up from the dirty earth men stare:
One imagines a refuge there
Above the mud, in the pure bright
Of the cloudless heavenly light:
Another loves earth and November more dearly
Because without them, he sees clearly,
The sky would be nothing more to his eye
Than he, in any case, is to the sky;
He loves even the mud whose dyes
Renounce all brightness to the skies.
This poem is about the month of November when leaves start to fall off the trees, where the night is longer than the day and the vibe is diffrent than how it used to feel. November was the time of the month to adjust the night time getting longer than the day leaves changing color and falling.
Jayden Cho
ReplyDelete11/28/18
XXIV. Queen, “Bohemian Rhapsody”
Is this the waking world, or do I sleep? (A)
I find I can’t be roused, to my dismay; (B)
but you should not for this delinquent weep (A)
for I’m a brute whose soul’s been toss’d away. (B)
O mother sweet, I bring thee news of dread - (C)
my life’s at end, for I’ve another slain. (D)
I press’d my crossbow up against his head (C)
and loosed its bolt away into his brain. (D)
- but hark! I see a dark and ghostly form (E)
amidst the lightning launch’d by Jove on high! (F)
The cries for mercy, silenced by the storm, (E)
Are futile; I’ll not be released, but die. (F)
- My fate now seal’d, ‘tis plain for all to see: (G)
the wind’s direction matters not to me. (G)
This sonnet is one of the many pop-sonnets, which would take a very popular song and Shakespearean “sonnetize” it, with the main message still throughout the sonnet. This sonnet, like the actual song, is a very sad, remorseful feeling throughout with words like “dismay” or “cries for mercy”, however also shows some regret and apologetic themes near the end. The format is exactly the same as a Shakespearean sonnet, with three quatrains and one couplet. Unlike the other sonnets from class, this sonnet doesn’t have a rebellious spirit like John Donne’s “Holy Sonnet VI”, yet talk about the same topic, life and death. I personally like this sonnet a lot, because Queen itself being my idol, I could personally understand and connect all the phrases from actual lyrics from the song, which helped me a lot to appreciate the Shakespearean words. For example, the sentence “I press’d my crossbow up against his head and loosed its bolt away into his brain” reflects from the actual lyrics “Put a gun against his head, pulled my trigger now he’s dead (Metaphorically speaking, not literal).”
Ben Worthley
ReplyDeleteThe Soldier
If I should die, think only this of me:
That there’s some corner of a foreign field
That is forever England. There shall be
In that rich earth a richer dust concealed;
A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware,
Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam,
A body of England’s, breathing English air,
Washed by the rivers, blest by suns of home.
And think, this heart, all evil shed away,
A pulse in the eternal mind, no less
Gives somewhere back the thoughts by England given;
Her sights and sounds; dreams happy as her day;
And laughter learned of friends; and gentleness,
In hearts at peace, under an English heaven.
The writer is concerned about the soldier. In a time of war, I believe that the writer had some sort of personal connection to the person in he is talking about. The war is taking place far from the soldier homeland or England. Or an old soldier that died and they can never come home.
Julia: "Sonnet XLIII"
ReplyDeleteby Edna St. Vincent Millay, 1956
What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why, A
I have forgotten, and what arms have lain B
Under my head till morning; but the rain B
Is full of ghosts tonight, that tap and sigh A
Upon the glass and listen for reply, C
And in my heart there stirs a quiet pain D
For unremembered lads that not again D
Will turn to me at midnight with a cry. C
Thus in winter stands the lonely tree, E
Nor knows what birds have vanished one by one, F
Yet knows its boughs more silent than before: G
I cannot say what loves have come and gone, F
I only know that summer sang in me E
A little while, that in me sings no more. G
This sonnets theme is about love and not having a care in the world. The narrator talks about how they can't remember their lovers and how they are never satisfied with what they currently have. There is no need to start a relationship when they could try to find something better to fill their empty void. This sonnet has four quarantines. This sonnet doesn't remind me of another, but it does remind me of a poem about a woman who went from guy to guy looking for someone who was perfect for her when there was someone for her there all along. I don't remember the name of this poem but the two have many similarities.
Evan Brenner
ReplyDeleteLoss
In losing you I lost my sun and moon
And all the stars that blessed my lonely night.
I lost the hope of Spring, the joy of June,
The Autumn’s peace, the Winter’s firelight.
I lost the zest of living, the sweet sense
Expectant of your step, your smile, your kiss;
I lost all hope and fear and keen suspense
For this cold calm, sans agony, sans bliss.
I lost the rainbow’s gold, the silver key
That gave me freedom of my town of dreams;
I lost the path that leads to Faërie
By beechen glades and heron-haunted streams.
I lost the master word, dear love, the clue
That threads the maze of life when I lost you.
This is more of a sad sonnet. It explains about loss and how you fell and your emotions. This poem also makes you realize that in your life you are going to lose someone. After the loss you will be sad for a few days, but it makes realize life can have ups and downs. Eventually, you will have to move on and focus on the present and future. This sonnet reminds me of some of the poems we read in class because some can be sad and dark like this one. Or they can be happy and pleasant.
Lucas Kaufman
ReplyDelete“Impression du Voyage”
Oscar Wilde (1854 - 1900), 1881
The sea was sapphire coloured, and the sky (a)
Burned like a heated opal through air, (b)
We hoisted sail; the wind was blowing fair (b)
For the blue lands that to the eastward lie. (a)
From the steep prow I marked with quickening eye (a)
Zakynthos, every olive grove and creek, (c)
Ithaca’s cliff, Lycaon’s snowy peak, (c)
And all the flower-strewn hills of Arcady. (a)
The flapping of the sail against the mast, (d)
The ripple of the water on the side, (e)
The ripple of girls’ laughter at the stern, (f)
The only sounds:—when ’gan the West to burn, (f)
And a red sun upon the seas to ride, (e)
I stood upon the soil of Greece at last! (d)
This sonnet is about an adventure through what appears to be the world of the Ancient Greek myths. Oscar Wilde talks about the wonder of this imaginary journey, seeing all these places he knows about only from stories, and imagining all the sights and sounds of his surroundings, using some vivid imagery in the process. He is very descriptive as well, and very effective at capturing the sense of wonder he surely gets from all the ancient heroes and the marvelous places they’d been. I found his repeated comparisons to gemstones interesting, too, from the “sapphire-coloured sea” to the “sky, burned like a heated opal through air”, and while this may be a coincidence I think it could hint at another possible interest of Wilde’s. In this sonnet, Wilde utilizes the same breakup as Shakespeare so commonly did- three quatrains followed by a couplet- but the rhyme scheme is one that I haven’t ever seen before- starting with a familiar “abba” in the first quatrain, then continuing as “acca deff ed”.
Sean Wilen
ReplyDeleteIf you were once inside my circle of love
and from this circle are now excluded,
and all my love’s citizens I love more than you,
if you were once my lover but I’ve stopped
letting you, what is the view from outside
my love’s limit? Does my love’s interior emit
upward and cut into night? Do my charms,
investigations, and illnesses issue to the dark
that circles my circle? Do they bother
your sleep? And if you were once my friend
and are now my villainous foe, what stories
do you tell about how stupid those days
when I cared for you? Because I tell stories
of how you must tremble at my love’s terrible walls,
how the memory of its interior you must always be eroding.
In this sonnet, I learned about love and how to be happy you have to find the perfect one. (or the one that fits in the circle) also says that breakups are a thing and will happen and they stink. She is talking about how people must of betrayed her cause quote “And if you were once my friend and are now my villainous foe, what stories do you tell about how stupid those days when I cared for you? Saying don't talk about me behind my back cause you don't matter anymore.
IDK Why it got messed up :(
DeleteFrankie Huntress
ReplyDeleteAt the Tomb of Napoleon Before the Elections in America—November, 1912
I stood beside his sepulchre whose fame,
Hurled over Europe once on bolt and blast,
Now glows far off as storm-clouds overpast
Glow in the sunset flushed with glorious flame.
Has nature marred his mould? Can Art acclaim
No hero now, no man with whom men side
As with their hearts’ high needs personified?
There are will say, One such our lips could name;
Columbia gave him birth. Him Genius most
Gifted to rule. Against the world’s great man
Lift their low calumny and sneering cries
The Pharisaïc multitude, the host
of piddling slanderers whose little eyes
Know not what greatness is and never can.
I choose this poem becuse i thought that it hada intristeing title. It talks about how on sees the beuty of the world next to death. The glow of the sun set was the glorius path he lead through history. The storm clouds pasing over was the wars he started ending. How he was a hero no art could capture.how they did not know what they would do now.how he was a great leader but a villian.
Sophia Lakos
ReplyDeleteI had no thought of violets of late,
The wild, shy kind that spring beneath your feet
In wistful April days, when lovers mate
And wander through the fields in raptures sweet.
The thought of violets meant florists’ shops,
And bows and pins, and perfumed papers fine;
And garish lights, and mincing little fops
And cabarets and songs, and deadening wine.
So far from sweet real things my thoughts had strayed,
I had forgot wide fields, and clear brown streams;
The perfect loveliness that God has made,—
Wild violets shy and Heaven-mounting dreams.
And now—unwittingly, you’ve made me dream
Of violets, and my soul’s forgotten gleam.
This poem is still following the same rhyme pattern as the other ones we had previously looked at. Also, the words used are more common and I can understand it a little more. This poem seems like it is describing happiness, it uses a lot of descriptive words that are positive and make you feel like you are there. It also gets a little sadder towards the end and seems like it starts talking about you start to forget someone when you see them less. The author does a great job describing a feeling.
Mitch Keamy
ReplyDelete"Ever"
by Meghan O'Rourke, 2015
Never, never, never, never, never.
—King Lear
Even now I can’t grasp “nothing” or “never.”
They’re unholdable, unglobable, no map to nothing.
Never? Never ever again to see you?
An error, I aver. You’re never nothing,
because nothing’s not a thing.
I know death is absolute, forever,
the guillotine—gutting—never to which we never say goodbye.
But even as I think “forever” it goes “ever”
and “ever” and “ever.” Ever after.
I’m a thing that keeps on thinking. So I never see you
is not a thing or think my mouth can ever. Aver:
You’re not “nothing.” But neither are you something.
Will I ever really get never?
You’re gone. Nothing, never—ever.
This sonnet is much different from the older sonnets. This sonnet lacks the same Iambic Pentameter that the other poems hold. There is no ABABCDCDEFEFGG rhyme scheme, in fact there is very little rhyming at all. Also, instead of having two quatrains and a couplet, "Ever" by: Meghan O'Rourke has 16 lines that seem to flow together as one. The author creates an eery feeling describing that once we leave the planet, nothing happens.
Lucy Elerath
ReplyDeleteAs on Sunny Afternoon- Patrick Gillespie
As on a sunny afternoon in May (a)
When a wind through the open window takes (b)
The curtains swirling after it to play, (a)
Or summers when a strong gust shakes and shakes (b)
The airing sheets until in letting go (c)
The freely billow, there is never rest- (d)
No sooner comes a changing breeze as though in jest (d)
Upending all that we’d been certain of; (e)
The blows the leaves into the entry-hall (f)
As would a child who plays at Love-Me, Love- (e)
Me -Not until she’s let the flower fall (f)
And forgets- petals we try to catch before (g)
We close our hands to see and see no more. (g)
This sonnet is unusual because it has 2 quatrains and a set of 5 as it’send. The sonnet itself is about an afternoon in which children are paying it is calm but active and depicts most of the senses. It shows that kids are sweet and fun, and they don’t hold onto stuff for very long. There is a child who is playing a game with themselves and ends up forgetting. The author writes this as if they were the child or have been watching the child. It shows that author as sensitive and aware. The sonnet holds no judgment but only has a soothing tone. The child, however, is saddened the flower fell and forgets about it later. Yet the child was basing their love life on the flower in a sense and they were quick to discard it.
Davis Blanch
ReplyDeleteSonnet 34
Why didst thou promise such a beauteous day,
And make me travel forth without my cloak,
To let base clouds o'ertake me in my way,
Hiding thy bravery in their rotten smoke?
'Tis not enough that through the cloud thou break,
To dry the rain on my storm-beaten face,
For no man well of such a salve can speak,
That heals the wound, and cures not the disgrace:
Nor can thy shame give physic to my grief;
Though thou repent, yet I have still the loss:
The offender's sorrow lends but weak relief
To him that bears the strong offence's cross.
Ah! but those tears are pearl which thy love sheds,
And they are rich and ransom all ill deeds.
In this sonnet, he talks of denial and neglect of himself. He talks about not being prepared for what lies ahead and his hard work not coming out to be much help. He talks about the loss of someone or something.
Wrong poem! please delete.
Delete^Davis
Delete