Poetry

The Poison Tree
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 watered it in fears
Night and 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 outstretched beneath the tree

Rhyme scheme, metaphor, symbolism

In this poem there are William Blake has used three different literary terms. One of them is a rhyme scheme, which is used in almost all of William Blake’s poems. The rhyme scheme of this poem is AA BB and continues this way in the other stanzas of them poem as well. In the second stanza he says “I watered it in fears … and I sunned it with smiles”; here William Blake is using a metaphor to compare his anger to a plant or tree. He describes how he let his anger toward an enemy grow.

Symbolism
The third literary device William Blake used symbolism. The title of the poem, “the poison tree” itself is symbolism which represent the anger of the speaker.

Mad Song
The wild winds weep and the night is a-cold
Come hither, Sleep and my griefs infold
But lo! The morning peeps over the eastern steeps and the rustling birds of dawn the earth do scorn

Lo! to the vault
Of paved heaven
With sorrow fraught
My notes are driven
They strike the ear of night
Make weep the eyes of day
They make mad the roaring winds
And with tempests play

Like a fiend in a cloud
With howling woe
After night I do crowd
And with night will go
I turn my back to the east
From whence comforts have increas'd
For light doth seize my brain
With frantic pain

There’s alliteration = wild winds weep Personification = wind is weeping Rhyme scheme = AB AB CC DD

In this poem there are a few literary devices. One of the first ones I identified was alliteration. In the first line of the first stanza the speaker says “Wild winds weep”, this is alliteration because all three words start with the letter W, and there is a repetition of the consonant sound. This is also personification because the wind is given human qualities’ the speaker says that the wind is weeping, so there therefore it’s and alliteration as well as personification. In this poem there is also a rhyme scheme, which is AB AB CC DD, which continues throughout the rest of the poem.

London
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I wander thro’ each charter’d street near where the charter’d Thames does flow
And mark in every face I meet
Marks of weakness, marks of woe

In every cry of every Man
In every Infants cry of fear
In every voice: in every ban
The mind-forg’d manacles I hear

How the Chimney-sweepers cry
Every black’ning Church appalls
And the hapless Soldiers sigh
Runs in blood down Palace walls

But most thro’ midnight streets I hear
How the youthful Harlots curse
Blasts the new-born Infants tear
And blights with plagues the Marriage hearse
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* Imagery, symbolism, repetition, && rhyme scheme

In this poem there are four literary devices. There is a rhyme scheme which is AB AB, which continues throughout in the rest of the poem. There is also repetition in this poem, William Blake repeats the word “every” in the second stanza to put an emphasis on the fact that everyone is suffering, and not just a small group of people. He also repeats the words “cry” and “chartered”. The first line of the third stanza “chimney- sweepers cry” symbolizes how just like the chimney sweepers, everyone is being forced to do hard labour. The second line of the third stanza “every blackening church appals” is also symbolism because the word blackening represents corruption in the society.

Imagery
While reading the first stanza an image of a person walking down a chartered street is created in the reader’s mind. The reader imagines a dark street with people doing hard labour and frightened expressions on their face. William Blake uses words such as, “cry”, “weaknesses”, “woe” and “blackening” to show the hostility and corruption in the society. This society is the kind of place where there is a lot of injustice, a place where the people are crying out and are forced to do very hard labour.

Holy Thursday
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’Twas on a Holy Thursday their innocent faces clean
The children walking two & two in red & blue & green
Grey headed beadles walk’d before with wands as white as snow
Till into the high dome of Paul’s they like Thames waters flow

O what a multitude they seem’d these flowers of London town
Seated in companies they sit with radiance all their own
The hum of multitudes was there but multitudes of lambs
Thousands of little boys & girls raising their innocent hands

Now like a mighty wind they raise to heaven the voice of song
Or like harmonious thunderings the seats of heaven among
Beneath them sit the aged men wise guardians of the poor
Then cherish pity, lest you drive an angel from your door
-Allusion reference to religion “Holy Thursday”
-Similes -Oxymoron

In this poem there are four literary devices. The rhyme scheme of this poem is AABB in the first and the following stanzas. There is an allusion in this poem which makes a reference to Ascension Day. In this poem it is called Holy Thursday because Ascension Day is supposed to be the Thursday 40 days after Easter day. This day commemorates the ascension of Christ into heaven. Another literary device used in this poem is oxymoron, which is in the second line of the third stanza. It says “harmonious thunderings”, and this is an oxymoron because usually when I person talks about thunder they describe it as loud and fearful, but in the poem it is said to be harmonious. There’s also a simile in this and it is in the third line of the first stanza. “Wands as white as snow” is a simile because it’s comparing two unlike things using the word as. My Pretty Rose Tree
A flower was offered to me
Such a flower as May never bore
But I said 'I've a pretty rose tree
And I passed the sweet flower o'er

Then I went to my pretty rose tree
To tend her by day and by night
But my rose turned away with jealousy
And her thorns were my only delight

Literary devices: * Rhyme scheme * -Symbolism * -Alliteration * -Allusion * Oxymoron * Metaphor * Personification * Repetition * -Similes

Lyric- Robert Frost – Fire and ice
Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I've tasted of desire
I hold with those who favour fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice. The theme of this poem is about the end, and more specifically, of this world. When the author says “Some say the world will end in fire, some say in ice” he is telling the reader about the ways that they heard the world was going to end, which is either in fire or ice. The author favours fire over ice, but says that “if it had to perish twice” by the destruction of ice that, it would suffice for the author. Meaning, that would also do for him.

Ballad- Allen Ginsberg-When I died
When I died, love, when I died my heart was broken in your care;
I never suffered love so fair as now I suffer and abide when I died, love, when I died.

When I died, love, when I died
I wearied in an endless maze that men have walked for centuries, as endless as the gate was wide when I died, love, when I died.

When I died, love, when I died there was a war in the upper air: all that happens, happens there; there was an angel by my side when I died, love, when I died.

The theme of this poem is of love and death. The speaker is talking to their loved ones about how when they died, they claimed to have seen things, such as, “an endless maze”, “a war in the upper air” and “an angel by their side”. When the speaker says that their heart was broken in their loved ones care and that they had never suffered love so fair, they are indirectly telling the reader that they did not regret their death because it was for the ones that they loved. Also, the reader is told directly that this poem is about love and death by the first line, itself, which is “when I died, love, when I died”.