Poetry II
127 questions
Read the following poem by John Milton (first published in 1673) carefully before choosing your answer.
On His Blindness
When I consider how my light is spent,
Ere half my days in this dark world and wide,
And that one talent which is death to hide
Lodged with me useless, though my soul more bent
To serve therewith my Maker, and present
My true account, lest He returning chide;
"Doth God exact day-labor, light denied?"
I fondly ask. But Patience, to prevent
That murmur, soon replies, "God doth not need
Either man's work or his own gifts. Who best
Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best. His state
Is kingly: thousands at his bidding speed,
And post o'er land and ocean without rest;
They also serve who only stand and wait."
How does the structural division between the octave (lines 1–8) and the sestet (lines 9–14) contribute to the development of the poem's theme?
Read the following passage carefully:
(1) The great wheel turns, and in its turning grinds
(2) The quiet hours to dust; we watch the gears
(3) Mesh without pity, though the spirit finds
(4) A momentary peace before it clears
(5) The path for progress. Still, the iron hand
(6) Does not relent. It shapes the yielding clay
(7) Of all our lives—into a patterned land
(8) Where even shadows learn how to obey.
In lines 5–7 ('Still . . . land'), the interplay between enjambment and the midline period in line 6 ('relent. It') primarily serves to do which of the following?
Read the following passage carefully before choosing your answer.
(1) We watched the shadow of the gallows grow
(2) Across the courtyard where the daisies spring
(3) Unhindered by the heavy stones below;
(4) We listened for the midday bell to ring
(5) Its heavy metal warning—but the sound
(6) Broke off. A sudden silence held the air,
(7) And in that quiet space we looked around
(8) For what we knew would be no longer there.
In lines 5–6 ('but the sound / Broke off'), the poet uses enjambment followed by a full stop (caesura) primarily to do which of the following?
Read the following poem by John Keats carefully before answering the question.
On First Looking into Chapman's Homer (1816)
Much have I travell'd in the realms of gold,
And many goodly states and kingdoms seen;
Round many western islands have I been
Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold.
Oft of one wide expanse had I been told
That deep-brow'd Homer ruled as his demesne;
Yet did I never breathe its pure serene
Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold:
Then felt I like some watcher of the skies
When a new planet swims into his ken;
Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes
He star'd at the Pacific—and all his men
Look'd at each other with a wild surmise—
Silent, upon a peak in Darien.
How does the structural shift (volta) between the octave (lines 1–8) and the sestet (lines 9–14) contribute to the development of the poem's theme?
Consider the following poem:
1 The city walls are grey and high and cold,
2 Where iron wheels repeat their iron song,
3 And all the youth of day is quickly old,
4 And all the streets are narrow, dark, and long.
5 No leaf is green, no wind is soft or sweet,
6 But soot descends in silent, heavy rain,
7 To coat the stones beneath our hurried feet,
8 And write on every wall the word of pain.
9 Yet in the shadow of the central spire,
10 A single bird begins its fragile note,
11 And kindles there a small, forgotten fire
12 Within the music of its golden throat.
In the poem, how does the shift in tone that begins in line 9 ('Yet in...') alter the speaker's depiction of the setting?
The following lines are from a poem about a greenhouse.
1 The glass is ribbed with iron, thick with lime,
2 To keep the wild October wind at bay;
3 Here, safe from frost, the tender orchids climb,
4 And heavy palms ignore the dying day.
5 Within this humid cage, a false July
6 Sustains the leaf, preserves the scarlet bloom,
7 While just beyond the panes, the crows go by
8 And winter settles on the gravel tomb.
9 But touch the glass—the cold is pressing in,
10 A silent army clustered at the gate;
11 The fragile walls of our containment spin,
12 And we, who built this sanctuary, wait
13 To feel the sudden, catastrophic break
14 Of all we labored so to save and make.
In the poem, the shift beginning in line 9 ('But touch the glass') primarily functions to do which of the following?
Read the following poem.
We stand on the lip of the cooling basin
where the slag, having shed its orange anger,
crusts into a gray, brittle memory.
Here, the air does not flow;
it settles,
a weight we carry in the throat.
You speak of structure—
of the way a girder holds a roof up,
but look how the unmeasured steam
unravels itself against the rafters,
free of any joist
or blueprint.
In the poem, how does the open form and lineation of the lines "Here, the air does not flow; / it settles, / a weight we carry in the throat" function to convey the speaker’s experience?
Read the following lines from John Milton's sonnet "When I consider how my light is spent" (1673):
When I consider how my light is spent,
Ere half my days, in this dark world and wide,
And that one Talent which is death to hide
Lodg'd with me useless, though my Soul more bent
To serve therewith my Maker, and present
My true account, lest he returning chide,
Doth God exact day-labour, light deny'd,
I fondly ask;
In lines 1–8, the speaker delays the main subject and verb ("I fondly ask") until the final line of the opening octave. Which of the following best describes the effect of this periodic syntactic structure?
Read the following poem by Emily Dickinson (1830–1886):
Apparently with no surprise
To any happy Flower
The Frost beheads it at its play—
In accidental power—
The blonde Assassin passes on—
The Sun proceeds unmoved
To measure off another Day
For an Approving God.
Which of the following best describes the thematic function of personifying the frost and the sun in the poem?
Read the following passage from T. S. Eliot's poem "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" (1915):
No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be;
Am an attendant lord, one that will do
To swell a progress, start a scene or two,
Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool,
Deferential, glad to be of use,
Politic, cautious, and meticulous;
Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse;
At times, indeed, almost ridiculous—
Almost, at times, the Fool.
In the first line of the passage, the speaker's allusion to Prince Hamlet serves primarily to highlight which aspect of the speaker's character?
Read the following passage carefully before choosing your answer.
(1) The stone remains, though we who carved the name
(2) Forget the face; a sudden shadow falls
(3) Across the threshold—not with grief or shame,
(4) But quiet, like the ivy on the walls
(5) That grows in silence. Now the heavy brass
(6) Latch drops to seal the courtyard; we remain
(7) Outside the locked domain, while through the glass
(8) We watch the shadows gather in the rain.
In the context of the poem, the enjambment between line 5 ("brass") and line 6 ("Latch") primarily serves to do which of the following?
Read Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s poem "The Eagle" (1851):
He clasps the crag with crooked hands;
Close to the sun in lonely lands,
Ring'd with the azure world, he stands.
The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls;
He watches from his mountain walls,
And like a thunderbolt he falls.
In the second stanza, the personification of the sea ("The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls") primarily serves to do which of the following?
In the poem below, a speaker describes a cartographer's attempt to map a coastline:
To trace the edge where granite meets the foam,
He pins the parchment to the cedar board,
And draws a line as steady as a chord
Struck on a viol in a quiet home.
Here lies the cape, a neat and static curve, (5)
Embalmed in ink, arrested and defined;
The world is clean, and easily confined
To ink and rule, which do not bend or swerve.
But rising tides erase the sandy spits,
And winter storms chew down the headland's crown; (10)
The salt-crust crawls, the towers tumble down,
And every draft is shattered into bits.
What is the pen against the ocean's teeth?
The hand is frozen, and the ink must run;
The paper yellows underneath the sun, (15)
While deeper currents boil and surge beneath.
How does the shift in tone and imagery starting in line 9 ('But rising...') function in relation to the first eight lines of the poem?
Read the following lines from Robert Frost's poem "Storm Fear" (1913):
"When the wind works against us in the dark,
And whispers, 'You can't get out!'
And the strength of the cold is at our throat,
It is no play of the mind to say what cold does,
But the giant goes by, a-wing and a-foot,"
In the passage, the personification of the wind and the cold serves primarily to achieve which of the following effects?
Read the following poem by Paul Laurence Dunbar (first published in 1895) carefully before choosing your answer.
We Wear the Mask
[1] We wear the mask that grins and lies,
[2] It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes,—
[3] This debt we pay to human guile;
[4] With torn and bleeding hearts we smile,
[5] And mouth with myriad subtleties.
[6] Why should the world be over-wise,
[7] In counting all our tears and sighs?
[8] Nay, let them only see us, while
[9] We wear the mask.
[10] We smile, but, O great Christ, our cries
[11] To thee from tortured souls arise.
[12] We sing, but oh the clay is vile
[13] Beneath our feet, and long the mile;
[14] But let the world dream otherwise,
[15] We wear the mask!
In the context of the poem’s closed rondeau structure, how does the repetition of the short refrain line "We wear the mask" (lines 9 and 15) contribute to the development of the poem's theme?
Read the following poem carefully before choosing your answer.
(1) The lake does not outline itself;
(2) it spills into the reeds
(3) without a border,
(4) and I step in,
(5) cold rising first as a shock
(6) then as a second skin.
(7) My arms cut through the reflection
(8) of pine trees, breaking
(9) the green mirror into shards that drift
(10) apart, then heal
(11) behind my heels
(12) in silent, heavy rings
(13) that have no center
(14) to hold them.
Which of the following best describes the thematic effect of the poem's open form and frequent enjambment?
Read the following poem.
(1) Beneath the blue clay, they found the timbered floor
(2) of a house that had no name in the town ledger,
(3) its joists still holding the shape
(4) of the builder's local axe.
(5) We stood on the bank, watching the bucket
(6) scoop up silt and old willow roots,
(7) while the water,
(8) impatient,
(9) began its slow seepage back into the square.
(10) It does not want to be a lake,
(11) nor a memory;
(12) it wants only the level path
(13) of its own weight.
(14) The lines of the walls are gone now,
(15) dissolved in the brown wash
(16) of the rising pool,
(17) and what we sought to preserve
(18) becomes
(19) only the surface of the sky.
In the poem, the physical layout of the lines, particularly the indentations in lines 8–9 ("impatient, / began...") and lines 17–19 ("and what... / becomes / only..."), primarily serves to do which of the following?
Read the following poem carefully before answering the question.
The sharp acid of thy departed grace
Eats deep into the copper of my mind;
No wash of time or water can efface
The dark, engraved lines thou left’st behind.
My memory is the plate, prepared and planed,
Which once did mirror back thy radiant light;
But now, by sorrow’s biting liquid stained,
It yields an image black as winter's night.
The press of daily life may roll and strain,
And force the paper of my outward speech
To take the print of this enduring pain,
To show the world what silent grief can teach:
Yet though the sheets are scattered far and wide,
The etched metal must in darkness bide.
In the poem, how does the extended metaphor of the etching and printing process function to develop the speaker's reflection on grief?
Read the following lines from W. B. Yeats's poem 'Leda and the Swan' (1923):
Being so caught up,
So mastered by the brute blood of the air,
Did she put on his knowledge with his power
Before the indifferent beak could let her drop?
In these lines, how does the syntactic structure of the sentence contribute to the presentation of the central question?
Our love is but a book, in separate sheets,
Fresh from the press, where ink and paper meets;
Though now the printer folds each sheet apart,
And drives a wedge between thy heart and heart,
Think not the words are lost, or scattered wide,
Because they lie unbound on either side.
For when the Master Binder shall decree
To gather up these leaves of thee and me,
He’ll stitch the spine with threads of golden grace,
And smooth the wrinkled sheets in His embrace;
Then in one cover shall our souls be pressed,
Never to be revised, and ever blessed.
Which of the following best describes the primary analytical function of the speaker's extended metaphor comparing the lovers' relationship to the printing and binding of a book?