Poetry I

Read the following poem:

The clockwork gears of morning grind the mist,
A cold gears-turning that no sun has kissed.
The iron sparrows chirp a rusted song,
Where heavy, soot-stained shadows drag along.
The city wakes, a stiff, metallic beast,
Upon its own mechanical progress to feast.

In the third line, the connotation of the word "rusted" primarily serves to do which of the following?

Read the following lines carefully:

The harbor sleeps in shrouds of heavy grey,
Where silent hulls of rusted iron bide;
They do not strain against the tethered bay,
Nor heed the long, slow pulling of the tide.
Like weary giants turned to stone and clay,
They watch the distant, open ocean glide.

In line 3, the word 'tethered' most directly contributes to a depiction of the ships as being which of the following?

Read the following excerpt from a poem carefully:

(1) The iron dock-creaks groan against the tide,
(2) Where frozen salt-crusts bind the wooden slip,
(3) And wind, a whetstone to the cheek and side,
(4) Sharpens the breath on every sailor's lip.
(5) Only the dull, low hammer of the swell
(6) Beats out the rhythm of the year's decay,
(7) Tolling the harbor like an empty bell
(8) That echoes where the gray ice blocks the way.

In the excerpt, the auditory and tactile sensory details of the swell and the bell (lines 5–7) primarily serve to do which of the following?

Read the following poem carefully:

(1) The copper tube, cold-sweating in the dark,
(2) Tilts its great glass eye toward the silent height,
(3) Where ancient stars, like frozen needles, spark.
(4) The astronomer breathes in the cedar night,
(5) And hears the oil-lamp’s low and greasy hiss,
(6) While ink-pools dry upon the charted page.
(7) What is the warmth of hearth or lover's kiss
(8) To one who parses light from age to age?
(9) But as the shadow sweeps the marble floor,
(10) A sudden wind blows through the open door,
(11) Scattering the papers like a flock of birds,
(12) And drowning out his silent, starlit words.

In the poem, the sensory details of the observatory in lines 1–6 ("The copper tube... charted page") primarily serve to do which of the following?

The Woodcarver

The block of walnut yields to steel and hand,
Resigning form to what the blade decrees;
He coaxes curls of wood across the sand,
And strips the bark to find the hidden trees.

Yet as the chisel bites the stubborn grain,
A sudden knot resists the downward stroke—
A scar of winter frost or ancient rain,
That halts the blade and spares the heart of oak.

The carver pauses, lets the steel lie still,
To trace the contour of the timber's will.

In the poem, how does the stanzaic division between the second stanza (lines 5–8) and the concluding couplet (lines 9–10) reflect a shift in the woodcarver's relationship with his medium?

Read the following poem carefully before choosing your answer.

The Stonemason

(1) He splits the granite with a steady hand,
(2) To carve a boundary line across the grass,
(3) And marks the limits of the owner’s land
(4) In monuments that years will slowly pass.

(5) Yet as he works the cold and stubborn grey,
(6) He feels the mountain shifting underneath,
(7) A silent giant wearing time away,
(8) That holds its patience like a hidden sheath.

(9) The wall he builds will crumble into dust,
(10) While hills remain, indifferent to his trust.

Which of the following best describes how the poem’s stanzaic divisions reflect the development of the speaker’s reflection?

Read the following poem excerpt carefully:

The nave is gray, a vault of frozen air
Where silence hangs like dust upon the stone;
The arches curve in cold, indifferent prayer,
And shadow claims the altar for its own.
But look—the eastern lancet starts to burn,
As morning strikes the leaded saintly pane,
And crimson fires and sapphire rivers turn
The silent dust to gold and amber rain.
The chilly tomb is lost in sudden light,
A loud, visual anthem sung in glass,
That breaks the heavy solemnness of night
And bids the specters of the dark to pass.

Which of the following best describes the shift in the speaker's tone from the first stanza (lines 1–4) to the second and third stanzas (lines 5–12)?

### The Shipwright

(1) He shapes the stubborn timber to the keel,
His drawing lines defining how it bends;
The seasoned oak resists the clamps of steel,
A silent war of force and wood contends.
(5) For months the forest memory survives,
Retaining strength from sun and mountain air,
As though the fallen trunk still breathes and strives
To throw off every shape it’s forced to wear.
(9) But look—the final plank is planed and fit,
The ribbed frame stands complete, a hollow shell;
The wild and stubborn elements submit,
Bound to the tide they once could not foretell.

How does the structural transition between the second stanza (lines 5–8) and the third stanza (lines 9–12) function to develop the poem's thematic conflict?

Read the following poem carefully before choosing your answer.

The Potter

(1) She centers first the gray, unyielding clay
(2) Upon the wheel that spins in steady rings,
(3) And with a wet, pressing thumb she finds a way
(4) To hollow out the quiet space that sings.
(5) Then upward drags the walls, a rising throat
(6) That opens to the dry, demanding air,
(7) Suspending for a moment, like a note,
(8) The fragile shape she coaxes to be there.
(9) But clay remembers water, and it leans���
(10) A sudden tilt, the vessel bows its head,
(11) Collapsing inward to the mud it means
(12) Before the fire can make it stone instead.

In the poem, which of the following best describes the primary structural function of the stanza break between lines 8 and 9?

Read the following poem by George Herbert (published 1633) carefully before choosing your answer:

1 When God at first made man,
2 Having a glass of blessings standing by,
3 "Let us," said he, "pour on him all we can.
4 Let the world's riches, which dispersed lie,
5 Contract into a span."
6 So strength first made a way;
7 Then beauty flowed, then wisdom, honour, pleasure.
8 When almost all was out, God made a stay,
9 Perceiving that, alone of all his treasure,
10 Rest in the bottom lay.
11 "For if I should," said he,
12 "Bestow this jewel also on my creature,
13 He would adore my gifts instead of me,
14 And rest in Nature, not the God of Nature;
15 So both should losers be."

In lines 11–15, the metaphorical characterization of rest as "this jewel" (line 12) primarily serves to achieve which of the following effects?

Read the following poem by Christina Rossetti (published 1861) carefully before choosing your answer:

A Birthday

1 My heart is like a singing bird
2 Whose nest is in a water'd shoot;
3 My heart is like an apple-tree
4 Whose boughs are bent with thickset fruit;
5 My heart is like a rainbow shell
6 That paddles in a halcyon sea;
7 My love is come to me,
8 And my heart is gladder than all these.
9 Hang it with vair and purple dyes;
10 Carve it in doves and pomegranates,
11 And peacocks with a hundred eyes;
12 Work it in gold and silver grapes,
13 In leaves and silver fleurs-de-lys;
14 Because the birthday of my life
15 Is come, my love is come to me.

In the first stanza, how does the speaker’s series of similes in lines 1–6 function to convey their emotional state?

1 The amber vials, stoppered tight with wax,
2 Hold sediment of crushed and powdered thyme,
3 Where mint and bitter wormwood leave their tracks
4 In dusty rings of green and yellow lime.
5 Above the hearth, the dried-out chamomile
6 Hangs like a withered crown of brittle lace,
7 While steam from bubbling copper pots, meanwhile,
8 Dissolves the sharp camphor in this place.
9 But where the dark obsidian mortar rests,
10 A silent, odorless cold marble sleeps,
11 Untouched by all the boiling herbal tests,
12 Keeping the chill that winter shadow keeps.

In the poem, the sensory transition from the aromatic warmth of the first eight lines (lines 1–8) to the cold, odorless environment of the final four lines (lines 9–12) primarily functions to do which of the following?

Read the following poem carefully before choosing your answer.

The leaded panes divide the northern light
In calculated schemes of red and blue,
Where rigid saints, arrested in their flight,
Hold up their plaster hands to catch the dew
(5) Of colored sunbeams on the flagstone floor.
All is composed: the drapery of stone,
The vaulted arch, the heavy oaken door
That seals the silence of the choir alone.

Yet through the glass, a sudden shadow flies—
(10) A starling, wild and grey, against the wind,
Striking the leaden grid with frantic cries,
Disrupting what the builder had designed.
The holy calm, so meticulously bought,
Dissolves before that brief, ungoverned wing,
(15) And in the silent nave, a second thought
Disturbs the peace of every frozen thing.

The contrast between the static chapel interior and the starling’s sudden presence primarily serves to do which of the following?

Consider the following excerpt from a poem:

(1) The scent of bruised verbena in the hall
(2) Still clings like dampness to the heavy stone,
(3) Where twilight drafts through leaded windows fall,
(4) Leaving the vacant parlor cold and lone.
(5) But in the grate, a single copper spark
(6) Hisses and dies, and yields the room to dark.

Which of the following best describes how the transition from the olfactory and tactile imagery in lines 1–4 to the auditory and visual imagery in lines 5–6 impacts the tone of the excerpt?

The Chronometer

(1) The gear-teeth bite the brass with cold intent,
To measure out the drift of solar gold;
Each click a tiny drop of life that's spent,
A modern tale that mechanical hands unfold.
(5) But look between the springs where shadows lie,
And notice how the tension starts to slack;
A single coiled wire begins to sigh,
Resisting the relentless click and clack.
The pendulum swings wide, then holds its breath
(10) Before it falls back down to start anew—
A brief suspension, mimicking a death,
Before the heavy weights resume their due.

In the third stanza (lines 9–12), how do the enjambment between lines 9 and 10 and the caesura in line 9 work together to reinforce the poem's thematic focus?

Read the following poem by William Wordsworth (published in 1807) carefully:

(1) The world is too much with us; late and soon,
(2) Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;—
(3) Little we see in Nature that is ours;
(4) We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!
(5) This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon;
(6) The winds that will be howling at all hours,
(7) And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers;
(8) For this, for everything, we are out of tune;
(9) It moves us not. —Great God! I’d rather be
(10) A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn;
(11) So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,
(12) Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;
(13) Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;
(14) Or hear old Triton blow his wreathèd horn.

In the poem, how does the speaker's perspective shift in lines 9–14 ('Great God! . . . wreathèd horn')?

The Waterwheel

(1) The moss-green paddles scoop the rushing stream,
Lifting the heavy water to the light,
To pour it back in one continuous gleam
Of silver falling through the day and night.
(5) Yet in this circle, motion is a cage;
The oaken axle groans beneath the strain
Of dragging stone across a stony page
To grind the wheat and separate the grain.

And we who watch the turning of the wheel
(10) Find in its heavy pace a quiet law:
The heart must grind the bitter truth we feel
To find the nourishment we never saw.
The wheel descends; the water is released,
And yet the grinding has not slowly ceased.

In the poem, how does the stanzaic division between the second stanza (lines 5–8) and the third stanza (lines 9–14) function structurally to develop the poem's theme?

Read the following poem carefully:

The glass-bound palace gathers yellowed light,
Where sterile blossoms mimic summer's grace;
A painted leaf, immune to winter's bite,
Preserves the phantom of a warmer place.
Yet in this structured warmth, the forced blooms sigh,
Emprisoned in an artificial sky.

In line 5, the word "forced" most directly connotes which of the following?

Read the following poem carefully before choosing the best answer.

The Weaver's Dusk

The shuttle flies, a wooden tongue that speaks
In click and clack against the rising damp,
While through the leaded pane, a cold light leaks
To drown the yellow halo of the lamp.
She weaves the wool, coarse-spun and smelling raw
Of rain-soaked hillsides and the shearing pen,
But in her fingers, thread by golden thread,
A silent tapestry of silk is led
To map a world she never hopes to see—
A quiet harbor where the sun burns red.

In the poem, the shift in sensory details from lines 1–6 ("The shuttle . . . shearing pen") to lines 7–10 ("But in . . . burns red") primarily functions to highlight a contrast between which of the following?

The following poem is excerpted from a nineteenth-century work.

The shuttle flies, a silver-headed bee,
Weaving the garden’s simulated spring:
A thread of gold for every birdsong free,
A stitch of green to make the linnet sing.
Here summer sits, arrested in her prime,
Untouched by autumn’s cold, corrupting breath,
Securely fenced against the tooth of time,
A painted triumph over dust and death.

But turn the frame: the hanging's hidden side
Reveals a wild, chaotic drift of thread,
Where knots like strangled birds in shadows hide,
And tangled warps like broken branches spread;
No shape remains, no sweet, symmetrical grace,
Only the dark, confused, and bleeding seams
Where faceless hands in this forgotten place
Tore out the pattern of their waking dreams.

In the poem, which of the following best describes the primary function of the shift in focus from the tapestry's face to its "hidden side" (line 9)?