Poetry III

Read the following poem carefully before answering the question.

We map the stars and catalog the dust,
Confining ancient terrors to the drawer,
And place in gleaming steel our modern trust,
Believing we have locked the temple door.

Yet in the quiet room where data speaks,
I trace the rising curve, the warming sea,
And hear the phantom wind that wildly shrieks
Across the ruins of a state to be.

I play Cassandra to a room of stone,
Where polite murmurs greet the coming fire;
They praise the graph, the analytical tone,
Then turn to check the price of their desire.

In the final stanza (lines 9–12), how does the allusion to Cassandra primarily function?

Read the following poem carefully before choosing your answer:

Mine own soul is a volume, roughly cast,
Whose uncorrected sheets the printers bind;
The margins soiled by winters that have passed,
The errata of the flesh left unrefined.
Yet when the Coverer shall take this book,
To strip the worn and temporary thread,
And with a master’s eye and leveling look
Review the text that time and trial read,
He shall not cast the shattered spine away,
But gild the edges with enduring light,
Re-bind the broken leaves in fair array,
And place it on His shelf, secure from night.

In the poem, the extended metaphor of the book's rebinding and restoration ("Yet when the Coverer... secure from night") functions primarily to convey which of the following ideas?

Read the following poem carefully before choosing your answer.

The Antique Cabinet

The polished oak, in solemn grace,
Stands in the parlor’s quiet space,
Preserving deeds of yesteryear
With brass-ringed drawers and keyholes clear.
5 Within its dark, sequestered chest,
Old letters sleep, by time caressed,
And faded lace of quiet brides
In velvet-lined compartments hides.
All here is hushed, composed, and still,
10 Subservient to the keeper's will.

But look—upon the cabinet's crown,
A single carved medallion down,
Where nymphs in wild, unbridled chase
Disrupt the wood’s domestic face.
15 With parted lips and flying hair,
They leap through arcs of solid air,
As if the timber strove to break
The very peace it swore to make.

The structural contrast between the first ten lines of the poem (lines 1–10) and the final eight lines (lines 11–18) primarily serves to do which of the following?

Read the following poem by George Herbert carefully:

The Pulley

When God at first made man,
Having a glass of blessings standing by,
Let us (said he) pour on him all we can:
Let the world's riches, which dispersed lie,
Contract into a span.

So strength first made a way;
Then beauty flowered, then wisdom, honour, pleasure:
When almost all was out, God made a stay,
Perceiving that, alone of all his treasure,
Rest in the bottom lay.

For if I should (said he)
Bestow this jewel also on my creature,
He would adore my gifts instead of me,
And rest in Nature, not the God of Nature:
So both should losers be.

Which of the following best explains how the extended metaphor of the "pulley" functions in the poem to illustrate the relationship between humanity and the divine?

Read the following poem carefully before choosing the best answer.

The Gilded Automaton

Observe this brass philosopher, designed
To mock the steady ticking of the mind;
How smoothly gears of polished silver slide
To measure griefs we vainly seek to hide.
It does not weep when seasons fall away,
Nor count the cost of our prolonged delay,
But strikes the hour with cold, indifferent grace,
A gold smile etched upon its metal face.
And yet, what comfort in this iron law,
To find a heartbeat free of human flaw!
I wind the spring, and wish my breast could hold
A core as quiet, and a hand as cold.

Which of the following best describes the development of the speaker's tone and persona over the course of the poem?

Read the following excerpt from John Donne's seventeenth-century poem "A Valediction: Of Weeping" carefully:

Let me pour forth
My tears before thy face, whilst I stay here,
For thy face coins them, and thy stamp they bear,
And by this mintage they are something worth,
For thus they be
Pregnant of thee;
Fruits of much grief they are, emblems of more,
When a tear falls, that thou fall'st which it bore,
So thou and I are nothing then, when on a diverse shore.

In the first stanza, how does the extended metaphor of mintage function to develop the speaker's attitude toward separation?

Read the following poem carefully before answering the question.

The Chimney Sweeper (1789)

When my mother died I was very young,
And my father sold me while yet my tongue
Could scarcely cry " 'weep! 'weep! 'weep! 'weep!"
So your chimneys I sweep, and in soot I sleep.

There’s little Tom Dacre, who cried when his head,
That curled like a lamb’s back, was shaved: so I said
"Hush, Tom! never mind it, for when your head’s bare
You know that the soot cannot spoil your white hair."

And so he was quiet, and that very night,
As Tom was a-sleeping, he had such a sight!
That thousands of sweepers, Dick, Joe, Ned, and Jack,
Were all of them locked up in coffins of black.

And by came an Angel who had a bright key,
And he opened the coffins and set them all free;
Then down a green plain, leaping, laughing, they run,
And wash in a river, and shine in the Sun.

Then naked and white, all their bags left behind,
They rise upon clouds and sport in the wind;
And the Angel told Tom, if he’d be a good boy,
He’d have God for his father, and never want joy.

And so Tom awoke; and we rose in the dark,
And got with our bags and our brushes to work.
Though the morning was cold, Tom was happy and warm;
So if all do their duty they need not fear harm.

Which of the following best describes the relationship between the speaker’s persona and the author's thematic perspective in the final stanza?

Read the following sixteenth-century poem by Sir Thomas Wyatt carefully:

Whoso list to hunt, I know where is an hind,
But as for me, hélas, I may no more.
The vain travail hath wearied me so sore,
I am of them that farthest cometh behind.
Yet may I by no means my wearied mind
Draw from the deer, but as she fleeth afore
Fainting I follow. I leave off therefore,
Sithens in a net I seek to hold the wind.
Who list her hunt, I put him out of doubt,
As well as I may spend his time in vain.
And graven with diamonds in letters plain
There is written, her fair neck round about:
"Noli me tangere, for Caesar's I am,
And wild for to hold, though I seem tame."

Which of the following best describes the function of the extended metaphor of the deer hunt throughout the poem?

Read the following poem carefully before choosing your answer.

The Glass Weaver

The shuttle plies a silent, frozen thread
Across the loom of this translucent room,
Where weaved in silver is the quiet dead,
And stiffened lilies mimic summer’s bloom.
5 A cold geometry of pane and grid
Confines the garden’s wild, chaotic green;
Behind the screen of frost, the roots are hid,
Preserved in vitreous chambers, clear, unseen.
Yet when the winter afternoon declines,
10 The slanted light performs a sudden theft,
And bends the glass in sharp, distorting lines,
Until of every order we are left
With only shards of sun, a fractured grace,
That burns the weaver’s hands, but leaves no trace.

In the context of the poem as a whole, the evolution of the glass motif from a structuring force ('pane and grid') to a fracturing medium ('shards of sun') primarily symbolizes which of the following?

Read the following poem carefully before choosing your answer:

The Silver Apiary

The hives of lead stand cold beneath the moon,
Where silver bees, in clockwork silence, spin
A heavy, metallic thread—a frozen tune
Of all the fields they never gathered in. (4)
No scent of clover drifts across the floor
Of this grey garden, paved in polished slate,
Yet still they labor at the iron door,
And store their quiet hoard of gilded hate. (8)
For time is sweet, though hives are made of lead,
And work is long, though flowers never bloom;
They weave a shroud of honey for the dead,
To light the corners of a darkened room. (12)

How does the symbolic significance of the bees’ labor shift over the course of the poem?

Read the following poem carefully before answering the question.

The Gilded Forge

In the high chamber where the mirrors gleam
And silk-clad ladies trace a painted dream,
The silent clock marks out the languid hours
With scent of jasmine and of cut-house flowers.
No wind disturbs the velvet-draped repose,
No thorn brings blood to mar the perfect rose.
Yet just beneath the polished parquet floor,
Behind a barred and heavy iron door,
The furnace roars, a red and hungry beast,
Where black-browed smiths, from dawn to soot-stained east,
Strike down the iron with a deafening clang,
Where once the anvil's bitter music sang.
They shape the steel that holds the mirrors high,
Under a darkened, soot-encumbered sky.

In the poem, how does the structural transition in line 7 ('Yet just beneath...') contribute to the development of the poem's overall theme?

Read the following poem carefully before answering the question.

The compass sweeps a perfect, bloodless ring,
No feathers drift upon this marble floor.
I carve the lintel, fit the lock and key,
And secure the heavy, calculated door.
They praise the builder of the modern dome,
Who keeps the ceiling low, the mortar bound,
Yet when the evening shadows stretch and fade,
I trace the shadow of a wingless mound.
Let others keep their feet upon the clay;
I built the cage that spared my sober breath,
But in the quiet of this structured room,
I envy him who fell to such a death.

In the final line, the speaker's allusion to the figure who "fell to such a death" primarily functions to do which of the following?

Read the following excerpt from John Donne's 'Holy Sonnet 14' (1633):

Batter my heart, three-person'd God; for you
As yet but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend;
That I may rise, and stand, o'erthrow me, and bend
Your force, to break, blow, burn, and make me new.

Which of the following best describes the function of the enjambment in lines 1 and 3 ('for you / As yet' and 'and bend / Your force')?

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

Sophocles long ago
Heard it on the Ægean, and it brought
Into his mind the turbid ebb and flow
Of human misery; we
Find also in the sound a thought,
Hearing it by this distant northern sea.

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 context of this passage, the speaker's allusion to Sophocles primarily serves to do which of the following?

Read the following poem carefully before answering the question.

I did not mean to defy the high decree,
Nor did I yearn for ruins left behind;
I only wished to look once more and see
If mercy could be something we might find.
But now, encased in crystal white and cold,
A silent monument upon the plain,
I watch the travelers, hurried and bold,
Who flee the fire but carry still the pain.
They do not look, they run toward the dawn,
Obedient to the voice that bids them go,
While I remain, all agency withdrawn,
A pillar of the grief they’ll never know.

In the poem, the speaker's allusion to the biblical figure of Lot's wife serves primarily to do which of the following?

Read the following excerpt from Anne Bradstreet’s seventeenth-century poem "The Author to Her Book" carefully:

Thou ill-formed offspring of my feeble brain,
Who after birth didst by my side remain,
Till snatched from thence by friends, less wise than true,
Who thee abroad, exposed to public view,
Made thee in rags, halting to th' press to go,
Where errors were not lessened (all may know).
At thy return my blushing was not small,
My rambling brat (in print) should mother call,
I cast thee by as one unfit for light,
Thy visage was so irksome in my sight;
Yet being mine own, at length affection would
Thy blemishes amend, if so I could:

In the excerpt, how does the extended metaphor comparing the book to an "ill-formed offspring" primarily function to convey the speaker’s relationship to her writing?

Analyze the following poem:

The Clockmaker's Garden

The brass cogs spin in silent, rigid line,
Correcting time to match the strict design;
No hand may falter, and no wheel may stray
Beyond the copper borders of the day.

Yet through the window, wild and unconfined,
The ivy climbs, ignoring what's defined,
And blossoms burst in purple, lawless state,
Untamed by dials, indifferent to the date.

One counts the seconds; one ignores the year.
One speaks in ticks; the other breathes in cheer.
The steel conforms to what the gears demand;
The petal falls upon the shifting sand.

In the third stanza of the poem, how does the structural juxtaposition of the mechanical and the organic serve to develop the poem's central theme?

Read the following poem excerpt carefully:

We gather up the embers of the day,
Fanning the spark against the gathering cold,
And mock the eagle circling for his prey
Upon the barren heights we chose to hold.
No chains bind us to this unyielding stone,
Save the quiet habit of our own desire;
We stand in shadow, shivering and alone,
Yet warm our fingers at the stolen fire.

In the context of the poem as a whole, how does the allusion to the myth of Prometheus function to develop the speakers' perspective?

Read the following poem carefully:

The Salt-Garden

We sowed the grey seed in a brackish clay,
Where no sweet spring had ever dared to run,
And watched the pale crust ripen day by day,
A sterile harvest bleaching in the sun.
At first we praised the glitter of the white,
That sparkled like a host of fallen stars,
A clean, cold armor shielding us from night,
More durable than oak or iron bars.
But when the wind blew bitter from the reef,
It bit the root and stung the weeping eye;
The salt became our bread, our wine, our grief,
The very soil in which our dreams must die.

In the poem, the development of the salt motif—from a "clean, cold armor" (line 7) to "our bread, our wine, our grief" (line 11)—primarily serves to convey which of the following ideas?

The Gallery and the Quarry

In the white gallery, the marble stands,
Polished and silent under frozen beams,
Untouched by dust or calloused, working hands,
A quiet monument to ancient dreams.
No shadow falls across its sculpted face;
It holds a silent, everlasting grace.

But deep within the mountain's jagged tear,
The iron drills once bit the shrieking stone,
Where soot and sweat dissolved the frigid air,
And heavy blocks were dragged by muscle and bone.
There, in the dark, the raw, uncarved stone lay,
Washed by the cold and muddy rains of day.

In the poem, the structural division between the first and second stanzas primarily serves to contrast which of the following?