Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s poem, “Arrow and the Song” is a lyric poem giving an inspiration to a relationship or a friendship between two or more people. It includes analogies, symbolism, vivid imagery, and repetition to help convey what he is trying to reach to the audience
The poem is made up of three stanzas of quatrain, and it’s an end rhyme consists of aabb ccdd throughout the poem. Its lyrical type of poem, expresses his emotions about the arrow and the song. Longfellow represents the “arrow” a friendship, because like “arrow” it will last forever even though there are difficult problems both have to face. In the first stanza, “It fell to earth, I knew not where” this symbolizes the start of a conflict between two people. He is trying to reach it, but missed that chance, and now it’s gone.
In the second stanza, Longfellow represents memories like a song or his feelings that troubled him. But the first stanza and the second stanza both have in similarities, as one can refer as a repetition , “I shot an arrow” (1), “I breathed a song” (5), “It fell to earth I knew not where”, and “For..”, leaves me believe that both the arrow and the song both symbolizes the love and feelings. Another symbolism can be found in the last stanza the “oak”, it symbolize a strong, solid image to present a person’s soul. Even though he had lost the arrow for some time, he found it still “unbroke”. Just like in a friendship it cannot be broken down and pull apart no matter what how hard the situation. They are always being there and for that to keep it they need to treasure it.
You May Also Find These Documents Helpful
-
When the poem first starts off it explains the magical being coming down and embodying an animal with antlers. It talks about the strength it gathers, but then starts running way; trembling even. It has to run away from the evil humans who are attacking the animal with bows and arrows. This is symbolic, because in that stanza it shows how even the strongest animal, or being can be broken down and frightened. It also shows the evil inside man to attack the animal.…
- 466 Words
- 2 Pages
Good Essays -
Metaphor is the tool Bontemps uses in his poem. For instance, “Wind or fowl” (line 3) metaphorically refers to white race who are every where and can take the profit of African American race away like a wind blows grains away or like a bird intends to steal seeds of a farmer by pecking them away. Therefore, “the grain” (line 3) represents the speaker’s benefit that he gets from his hard work and effort, as the same as the word “reaping” in line 7. The “seed” (line 6) means his hard work to improve black people’s life. He dedicates so much like he scatters seed throughout the land with the hope of its bountiful output: the better life of the blacks. This has a similar meaning to the word “orchard” (line 9) in the last stanza. “Bitter fruits” (line 12) refers to what his children get from those seed he has planted: worthless outcome the future generation gets as a result of his dedicating work. It is the rancor like what he has got for all his life. As a whole poem, he compares the plantation of black slaves to their bitterness they face due to the white people.…
- 496 Words
- 2 Pages
Good Essays -
Do you think Longfellow's poem is about one specific traveler, or could it apply to all in general? Explain your answer. *…
- 545 Words
- 3 Pages
Powerful Essays -
Do you think Longfellow's poem is about one specific traveler, or could it apply to all in general? Explain your answer. It could be about one specific traveler, or all in general. All who dare to move under the cover of darkness aren't gonna succeed.…
- 379 Words
- 2 Pages
Good Essays -
7. Longfellow uses personification in the second stanza by saying “The little waves, with their soft, white hands efface the footprints in the sands…”…
- 355 Words
- 2 Pages
Good Essays -
The poem begins with the narrator telling herself, “A few more steps, old feet.” (line 1). The old feet she refers to are the ancestor’s feet, that appear to be old and worn out from the rigorous journey they take. The speaker then goes on to say, “In pale tea I’ll see / me with her, tasting wild grapes” (lines 4-5). This shows her reminder of her ancestors in nature. The pale tea is the symbol of the clean, clear simplicity of nature and when the speaker simplifies herself, to the bare nothingness of nature it reveals to her, her ancestors. Then in the following lines, “at dawn, tasting dew / on tender leaves, another year.” (lines 6-7). The dawn represents a new day, a new start where she can again acknowledge her heritage. After, the speaker says, “her hands still guiding me, / at sunset grinding seeds” (lines 11-12). These hands guiding the speaker, are her ancestors leading her through their stories and nature around…
- 810 Words
- 4 Pages
Good Essays -
Do you think Longfellow's poem is about one specific traveler, or could it apply to all in general? Explain your answer.…
- 450 Words
- 2 Pages
Good Essays -
Each year I hoped they'd keep, knew they would not" all explain the deeper meaning of the poem. The metaphors project a message that means not all great things appear perfect when you get to know them better. The "blackberry" may stand for something lovely but it never remains lovely. The speaker uses "once off the bush" to explain that once the fruits are picked, the fruit will not remain the same. This could be a metaphor for anything in life once one takes advantage of something, then it will not last forever. By stating "I always felt like crying," the speaker shows that the event saddened and disappointed him and that he "hoped they'd keep, knew they would not" each year. This shows that as humans, we repeat ourselves or our actions even when we know the outcomes. Therefore, this shows that nothing can be perfect, last forever, or will always go our way. The similes "hard as a knot," "like a plate of eyes," and…
- 477 Words
- 2 Pages
Good Essays -
The entire poem contains one extended metaphor about a boat on a river. The development of the metaphor began in verse two when the author compared his hands to paddles, because the man uses his hands to propel himself and navigate around the street and pavement. Next, the author used “familiar waters” implying that the street he was on was a river and that he does this often; hence the word familiar. Because of the extended metaphor, we can infer that the block of wood may also be a boat navigating across the waters. When we put all the pieces together we get a full, clear image: The man was getting around on his boat (“block of wood”), paddling (“hands are paddles”), speeding against the current (“Silk-stockinged legs”) and all of this happening throughout the vast river (“Queen Street”). The tone of the poem was heroic because in a sense the author is praising the man throughout the poem by describing all the things he has to…
- 550 Words
- 3 Pages
Good Essays -
The poem is arranged in quatrains with alternating rhyming couplets (ABAB). This creates a childlike quality to the poem like a nursery rhyme which compliments how it is written through the eyes of an infant. This reflects how everything is new to the baby and it watches and learns from everything around it. The four quatrains each describe a new animal that comes near the wagtail. The way each is different and they come one after another shows how it is happening in that moment.…
- 912 Words
- 4 Pages
Good Essays -
The first line contains an image of a “bronze butterfly” sleeping on a trunk. This stagnant description of such a beautiful creature demonstrates a slowly moving life, one of which hasn’t achieved much. The trunk that the butterfly is sleeping on is colored black, representing the man’s missed opportunities to leave the farm. The next line portrays a leaf blowing down a ravine found behind an empty house. Obviously the empty house and the later heard cowbells in the distance (implying that the cows are leaving the farm) are clear images of the man’s loneliness. The speaker moves on to spot some horse manure. This dung, after being left for over a year, has dried and is turning into stones. The changing of this manure symbolizes the man’s changing into an old, lifeless man. Just as the manure does, the longer the man sits there and waits for something, the more prone he is to dry up and waste his life. Before the last line of the poem, the speaker mentions the setting sun and the evening that approaches as he lays back in his hammock. A chicken hawk, a well-known hunter, flies by the man and looks for his home, just as the man is looking for his home — or the place where he belongs. As the evening envelops the man, all of these apparently “beautiful” images (yet symbolically depressing messages) pushes the man to realize that his life has become…
- 382 Words
- 2 Pages
Satisfactory Essays -
For me poetry is usually rather difficult to decipher the real meaning behind the rhyming and sentences that do not really flow with everyday speaking. This poem is an elegy in closed form which encompasses elements such as: alliteration, syntax, diction, rhyme, and has been one of the most parodied poems of all American literature. After much reflection, I believe the way in which Poe intended this poem to be…
- 546 Words
- 3 Pages
Good Essays -
In Longfellow’s poem “The Wreck of the Hesperus”, the poem is told as a story in poetic form, known as a narrative poem. “Hesperus” takes place in 1839 off Norman’s…
- 936 Words
- 4 Pages
Good Essays -
To begin with, Thomas writes in rhyming couplets which create an on-going effect of the individuals story also reflecting the oral tradition of the English countryside. He also writes in narrative lyric which gives this poem a song like undercurrent carrying the story fluidly and seamlessly. AOMWN is a narrative poem with an irregular rhyme scheme, Frost here reflects the conflict between man and nature as death approaches. Even though the poem is irregular in rhyme, frost makes use of internal rhyme such as assonance and alliteration which may illustrate how the character feels comfortable inside but has a fear of the natural environment, feeling almost as if it is against him.…
- 1127 Words
- 5 Pages
Good Essays -
One of the major themes of both these poems is the poets’ expression of a common message of how we rely on our imagination over and over again. Longfellow, the poet of The Ropewalk, demonstrates this common theme by scripting, “While within this brain of mine,/ cobwebs brighter and more fine.” (Longfellow 15-16) One of the poetic devices in this quote is rhyme scheme. The poet uses rhyme scheme to get the readers mind working- it causes the audience to use their imagination. This flow and rhyme helps exemplify the common theme of imagination. It does this by prying open the reader’s tightly enclosed mind, making him or her think, and use their imagination to predict what is coming next. By having a consistent rhyme scheme the reader will have a consistent surge of imagination. Emily Dickson then writes in the poem Because I could not stop for Death, “Because I could not stop for Death-/ He kindly stopped for me-” (Dickenson 1-2) This quote has many different rhetorical devices which, like The Ropewalk, also creates the theme of inspiring imagination. One very powerful device Emily Dickenson has used throughout her poem is the use of hyphens at the end of lines. This way of finishing each line is significant, because it tells the reader, unconsciously, to drift…
- 1603 Words
- 4 Pages
Powerful Essays