Poetry I

The Elevated Platform, 1904

The iron trestles span the crowded street
Like rib-bones of a buried leviathan,
Beneath whose shadow, thousands of pale feet
Beat out the tempo of a newer plan.
5 Above the din, the soot-choked engine screams,
A brass-bound deity of steam and speed,
Dispersing with its breath the older dreams
Of fields once quiet under clover seed.
The speaker stands amidst the rushing throng,
10 A quiet watcher in the city’s heart,
And marks how swiftly, as they sweep along,
The ancient and the novel drift apart:
For here, beneath the soot-veiled sky of noon,
The clock, and not the sun, dictates the hour,
15 And men, like wheels, are wound to spin too soon
By this new, dark, and engineering power.

In the poem, how do the specific historical and cultural elements of the urban setting shape the speaker's perspective on the onset of the industrial era?

Read the following poem carefully before choosing your answer.

1 The brass gears count the falling of the year,
2 In rhythmic, cold, and calculated beats;
3 No mercy softens their metallic sneer,
4 No human pulse their iron pulse defeats.
5 For thirty winters in this silent hall,
6 The pendulum has swung its heavy blade,
7 Carving the hours that crumble from the wall,
8 And sweeping up the shadows we have made.
9 Yet in the quiet pause before the chime,
10 A sudden warmth leaks through the frosted pane—
11 A brief rebellion in the clockwork time,
12 Like wild grass springing through a ruined lane.
13 The ticking fades; the golden light reveals
14 Not what is lost, but what remains to see:
15 The dust that dances on the spinning wheels
16 Is gilded by the sun's eternity.

Which of the following best characterizes the shift in tone from the first half of the poem (lines 1–8) to the second half (lines 9–16)?

Read the poem below carefully:

1 The heavy boughs, once green with summer’s weight,
2 Now claw the silent, frost-encrusted air;
3 A rusted padlock guards the broken gate,
4 Where weeds encroach and leave the borders bare.
5 No footsteps press the grey, path-weary stone,
6 Nor voices stir the silence of the glade;
7 The ancient pear tree stands and grieves alone,
8 A hollow phantom in a chilling shade.
9 Yet underneath the snow’s indifferent shroud,
10 A patient pulse persists within the clay;
11 Though winds of winter bluster cold and loud,
12 The quiet roots await a softer day.

Which of the following best describes the transition in the speaker���s tone that begins with the shift in line 9 ("Yet underneath...")?

The tide retreats in whispers to the deep,
And leaves the glistening silt to catch the cold;
The weary shores their salt-stained secrets keep,
Like ancient ledgers written in the mould.
A solitary gull divides the gray,
Its cry a silver thread across the shroud
Of fog that steals the remnant of the day,
And wraps the headland in a silent cloud.

In the second stanza of the poem (lines 5–8), the speaker’s use of the word “shroud” to describe the fog most directly suggests which of the following?

The Astrolabe

He holds the heavy brass against the sun,
Aligning sights to find a distant star,
And marks how far the seasonal pathways run
To chart the coastlines of a land afar.
The needle wavers, then begins to lock
Upon the coordinates of night,
While on the desk, the steady, wooden clock

Chimes out the hours of disappearing light,
And measures what the sky cannot retain:
The brief, dark passage of a human reign.

In the poem, how does the enjambment across the stanza break between lines 7 and 8 ('While on... wooden clock' and 'Chimes out... disappearing light') contribute to the development of the poem's theme?

Read the following poem carefully before choosing your answer.

1 Here where the boxwood tangles with the brier,
2 The lichened dial counts the shadowed hours,
3 A cold surveyor of the dying fire
4 That once was summer's canopy of flowers.
5 It measures out the slow, declining day,
6 As though the sun were but a slave to rules,
7 And marks the silent creeping of decay
8 With all the rigid certainty of schools.
9 Yet we who linger in the evening frost
10 Rage at the dial's clean, unblinking eye,
11 Mourning the transient passions we have lost
12 While this stone mockery persists to lie.

Which of the following best describes the shift in the speaker's tone that occurs in line 9?

Read the following poem by Christina Rossetti (published in 1862) carefully:

(1) Remember me when I am gone away,
(2) Gone far away into the silent land;
(3) When you can no more hold me by the hand,
(4) Nor I half turn to go yet turning stay.
(5) Remember me when no more day by day
(6) You tell me of our future that you plann'd:
(7) Only remember me; you understand
(8) It will be late then to counsel or to pray.
(9) Yet if you should forget me for a while
(10) And afterwards remember, do not grieve:
(11) For if the darkness and corruption leave
(12) A vestige of the thoughts that once I had,
(13) Better by far you should forget and smile
(14) Than that you should remember and be sad.

Which of the following best describes the development of the speaker's perspective over the course of the poem?

The poem below describes a sheltered conservatory during a winter storm.

Within the dome of glass, the palms arise
In green defiance of the northern gale,
Beneath a mimic sun of painted skies
Where summer's fragile empires still prevail.
The orchids breathe a warm, heavy perfume,
Unconscious of the frost upon the pane,
Ensconced within their artificial bloom,
Secure from winter's desolate domain.
But look: a hairline fracture splits the dome,
A silver vein that shivers in the cold,
And through the crack, the icy drafts find home,
And wilder winds of darker nights unfold.
The warmth departs; the delicate petals cower,
Forced to acknowledge the external hour.

Which of the following best describes the tonal transition that occurs between the first eight lines (lines 1–8) and the final six lines (lines 9–14) of the poem?

Read the following lines from Matthew Arnold’s poem "Dover Beach" (1867) carefully:

The Sea of Faith
Was once, too, at the full, and round earth’s shore
Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furled.
But now I only hear
Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar,
Retreating, to the breath
Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear
And naked shingles of the world.

In the passage, how does the metaphor of "The Sea of Faith" function to develop the speaker's perspective on the modern world?

Read the following poem carefully before choosing your answer:

The Whaler's Watch

Beneath the creaking mast of seasoned pine,
We trace the line where sky and water meet,
While oil from giants of the deep design
A smoky shroud above our frozen feet.
No church-bells ring across this pathless waste,
No tavern fires warm the sailor's hand;
Only the salt-spray and the bitter taste
Of miles that lie between us and the land.
The logbook counts the weeks in ink and bone,
A lonely empire carved on wooden decks,
Where man confronts the rolling tide alone,
And dreams of home amid the silent wrecks.

In the poem, the details of the whaling ship and the surrounding ocean setting primarily serve to emphasize which of the following?

Read the following poem excerpt:

The iron steamers churn the harbor grey,
Their black smoke masking out the dying sun;
With clanking chains they drag the night away,
To prove what human industry has won.

Yet far beyond the breakwater’s low wall
The ancient water breathes a rhythmic sigh,
Indifferent to the engines and their thrall,
Reflecting only the untroubled sky.

Which of the following best describes the function of the tonal shift that occurs in line 5 ('Yet far beyond...')?

Read the following poem carefully before answering the question.

(1) The cold wind strips the walnut tree,
(2) And whips the branches bare and gray;
(3) The iron frost binds fast the lea,
(4) And locks the streamlet's silver play.
(5) No song of thrush or linnet rings
(6) To break the silence of the hill,
(7) But winter folds her heavy wings
(8) Above a world grown cold and still.

How does the speaker’s use of tactile and visual imagery in lines 3–4 ('The iron frost . . . silver play') primarily contribute to the poem's meaning?

The Drawing-Room Cabinet

Here stands the lacquer cabinet, dark and deep,
Whose doors of foreign ebony enclose
A world of porcelain where herons sleep
Amidst the shadow of a painted rose.
Outside, the London rain begins to fall,
Graying the stone and dampening the lane,
While inside, tea-urns steam against the wall
And silk from far Calcutta hides the pane.
She counts the silver spoons with heavy hand,
A captive steward of this crowded floor,
While ships she never saw depart the land,
To bring home treasures through an open door.
She dusts the ivory fan, a fragile shield,
Against the rising draft she cannot yield.

How does the contrast between the domestic interior and the global origins of its furnishings contribute to the poem’s development of setting and historical context?

The Coal-Wharf at Dusk

The harbor sleeps beneath a shroud of grey,
Where wooden masts like skeletal fingers rise
To clutch the fading embers of the day.
But look—beside them, black against the skies,
The iron colliers yield their heavy store,
And hiss and breathe a hot, sulfurous sigh.
No longer do the white-winged clippers soar
Across the trackless blue; the tide is turned
To soot and iron on this crowded shore.
Here where the ancient salt-spray once was clean,
The heavy reek of bitumen is burned,
And pistons govern all the coastal scene.
The old men watch from benches by the slip,
Their eyes reflecting not the open sea,
But grease and coal-smoke on the modern ship.

How does the shift in the harbor setting from sailing vessels to steamships contribute to the poem's thematic development?

Read the following poem carefully:

The hearth-fire feeds on seasoned oak,
And throws its yellow fingers wide,
To catch the shadows in a cloak
Of soot and ashes side by side.
Yet in its fierce, devouring leap,
The flame consumes the quiet wood,
As if it had a vow to keep
To burn the gentle where they stood.

In the context of the poem as a whole, the word 'devouring' (line 5) primarily serves to achieve which of the following effects?

Read the following poem:

Within these panes of glass, a false July
Preserves the orchid’s tongue, the fern’s green feather,
Beneath a high, manufactured sky
That locks out winter’s blade and biting weather.
Here, safe from frost, the heavy blossoms sigh,
Shedding their pollen in a stagnant room,
Content to bloom and scent the air, while I
Admire the neat defiance of their bloom.

Yet pressing close against the steamed-up glass,
The skeletal grey branches of the oak
Mock this small refuge where the hours pass
In sweet simulation, like a gilded yoke;
For outside, in the cold, the wild things die,
But dying, feed the earth that gives them birth,
While here, embalmed in heat, the lilies lie,
Denied the soil, the struggle, and the earth.

In the poem, the speaker’s attitude toward the conservatory undergoes a shift that is best described as a transition from which of the following?

Read the following excerpt from a poem:

(1) The iron teeth of the great gears grind the dark,
(2) Spitting dry sparks against the soot-choked beam;
(3) Above the hiss of scalded, rising steam,
(4) A single thrush lets fall a silver spark
(5) Of melody, then flies. The hammers fall,
(6) Resuming their dull, heavy, rhythmic beat,
(7) Which drowns the phantom song in suffocating heat.

In lines 4-5, how does the sensory imagery describing the thrush's song contribute to the meaning of the passage?

Read the following poem:

The lighthouse stands, a whitewashed sentinel
Shorn of its flame, its copper dome turned green,
Where once the oily hiss of kerosene
Fed the great lens that threw a golden spell.
Now children climb the spiral iron stair
To buy postcards and plastic shells below,
While tourists watch the quiet water flow
Across the bay, so placid and so fair.
Yet when the fog rolls thick, a silent ghost,
The masonry still hums with phantom strain,
As if it longs to warn the vanished host
Of timbered wrecks that rotted in the rain;
Its dark, cold eye, though blind to sea and coast,
Remembers storms no ledger could explain.

Which of the following best describes the shift in tone that occurs after line 8?

Read the following poem excerpt carefully before choosing your answer:

The shuttle plies the rigid warp and weft,
Confining silver threads within the grey
Inherited design our mothers left—
A structured map of how to spend the day.

But here, the strictured border suddenly
Gives way; the green threads spill and overflow
The margins of the loom, escaping free
To crowd the quiet, dusty floors below.

In the second stanza (lines 5–8), the poet's use of enjambment primarily serves to accomplish which of the following?

Read the following poem carefully before choosing your answer.

The Loom of Winter

(1) The silver thread is spun across the grey,
To bind the naked branch in frozen sleep;
A silent weaver works at close of day,
With secrets that the winter earth must keep.
(5) But where the warp was taut and crystalline,
A sudden fracture splits the icy loom;
The rigid threads of frost begin to twine
Around the sudden warmth of early bloom.
Thus order yields to this impatient spring,
(10) Which breaks the quiet pattern of the snow,
And forces silent wood to wake and sing,
Before the cold is reconciled to go.

Which of the following best describes the function of the stanzaic division and transition between the first stanza (lines 1–4) and the second stanza (lines 5–8)?