Choose from the following poems only. After reading the poem type a two page essay on what you think the poem means. First focus on what you think the poem is about. Then take the time to look up some of the words used. Remember that poems are written in figurative language so try to understand what the author was trying to convey and why they selected the words used. The essay should pull out words, or sections of the stanzas and you should articulate how the words are being used to convey a particular theme or mood. Look through the textbook and recall the elements one should consider when conducting a poetry analysis.
All Poetry Analysis Papers are due no later than December 1st.
Option 1
Richard Cory
by Edwin Arlington Robinson (1869-1935)
Whenever Richard Cory went downtown,
We people on the pavement looked at him:
He was a gentleman from sole to crown,
Clean favored, and imperially slim.
And he was always quietly
arrayed,
And he was always human when he talked;
But still he fluttered pulses when he said,
“Good morning,” and he glittered when he walked.
And he was rich -- yes, richer
than a king,
And admirably schooled in every grace:
In fine, we thought that he was everything
To make us wish that we were in his place.
So on we worked, and waited for
the light,
And went without the meat, and cursed the bread,
And Richard Cory, one calm summer night,
Went home and put a bullet through his head.
Option 2
The End of the World
by Archibald MacLeish
Quite unexpectedly as Vasserot
The armless ambidextrian was lighting
A match between his great and second toe
And Ralph the Lion was engaged in biting
The neck of Madame Sossman while the drum
Pointed, and Teeny was about to cough
In waltz-time swinging Jocko by the thumb —
Quite unexpectedly the top blew off.
And there, there overhead,
there, there, hung over
Those thousands of white faces, those dazed eyes,
There in the starless dark, the poise, the hover,
There with vast wings across the cancelled skies,
There in the sudden blackness, the black pall
Of nothing, nothing, nothing — nothing at all.
Option 3
The Road Not Taken
By Robert Frost
Two roads diverged
in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could
not travel both
And be one
traveler, long I stood
And looked down one
as far as I could
To 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 there
Had worn them
really about the same,
And both that
morning equally lay
In 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 sigh
Somewhere 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
Option 4
Meeting at Night
By Robert Browning
The grey sea and the long black land;
And the yellow half-moon large and low;
And the startled little waves that leap
In fiery ringlets from their sleep,
As I gain the cove with pushing prow,
And quench its speed I’ the slushy sand.
Then a mile of warm sea-scented beach;
Three fields to cross til a farm appears;
A tap at the pane, the quick sharp scratch
And blue spurt of a lighted match,
And a voice less loud, thro its joys and fears
Than the two hearts beating each to each!
Parting at Morning
Round the cape of a sudden came the sea,
And the sun looked over the mountain’s rim;
And straight was a path of gold for him,
And the need of a world of men for me.
Option 5
Life and Love
By Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Fast this life of mine was dying,
Blind already and calm as death,
Snowflakes on her bosom lying
Scarely heaving with her breath.
Love came by, and having known her
In a dream of fabled lands,
Gently stooped, and laid upon her
Mystic chrism of holy hands;
Drew his smile across her folded
Eyelids, as the swallow dips;
Breathed as finely as the cold did
Through the locking of her lips.
So when life looked upward, being
Warmed and breathed on from above,
What sight could she have for seeing
Evermore…. but only Love?