Poetry III

The Dry Well

The circle of cold stone remains, though grass
Has choked the bucket where the rope once ran;
No water rises now to meet the glass
Or cool the forehead of a weary man.
Yet looking down into the silent deep,
Where only leaves and dust have found a home,
The eye beholds what shadows choose to keep
Far from the sunlit heights of cloud and dome.
It is a hollow mouth that speaks of drought,
And yet it holds a cool, persistent dark—
A quiet space where busy minds may doubt
The burning promise of the summer's spark.

Which of the following best describes how the symbolic significance of the well shifts over the course of the poem?

Read the following poem by Emily Dickinson (1830–1886), written around 1862:

I heard a Fly buzz - when I died -
The Stillness in the Room
Was like the Stillness in the Air -
Between the Heaves of Storm -

The Eyes around - had wrung them dry -
And Breaths were gathering firm
For that last Onset - when the King
Be witnessed - in the Room -

I willed my Keepsakes - Signed away
What portion of me be
Assignable - and then it was
There interposed a Fly -

With Blue - uncertain - stumbling Buzz -
Between the light - and me -
And then the Windows failed - and then
I could not see to see -

In the poem, how does the sudden intrusion of the fly in the third stanza contribute to the speaker's thematic argument concerning the nature of death?

Read the following seventeenth-century poem, "Huswifery" by Edward Taylor, carefully before choosing your answer:

Make me, O Lord, thy Spining Wheele compleate.
Thy Holy Worde my Distaff make for mee.
Make mine Affections thy Swift Flyers neere
And make my Soule thy holy Spoole to bee.
My Conversation make to be thy Reele
And yarn thereon spun of thy Wheele decaye.

Make me thy Loome then, knit therein this Twine:
And make thy Holy Spirit, Lord, winde quills:
Then weave the Web thyselfe. The yarn is fine.
Thine Ordinances make my Fulling Mills.
Then dy the Same in Heavenly Colours Choice,
All pinkt with Varnisht Flowers of Paradise.

In the poem, how does the speaker's extended metaphor of transforming raw fiber into finished cloth develop the poem's thematic argument?

Read the following poem carefully, then answer the question.

The Herbarium and the Hillside

Within the cedar chest, the papers keep
The flattened ghosts of April, pressed and dry;
A clover folded in a century's sleep,
A violet stripped of its reflecting sky.
Each leaf is labeled with a careful hand,
Assigned a Latin name, a shelf, a drawer,
A quiet kingdom in a silent land,
Where winter cannot threaten anymore.

But past the window pane, the sumac grows
In wild, uncatalogued, and green excess;
The unchecked thistle rises where it blows,
And briars tangle in a sweet distress.
No ink can bind the shadow of the crow,
No paper hold the dampness of the clay;
The hillside speaks in languages that flow,
And washes all the taxonomies away.

The structural contrast between the first stanza (lines 1–8) and the second stanza (lines 9–16) primarily functions to do which of the following?

Read the following poem by Sylvia Plath carefully before choosing your answer:

I am silver and exact. I have no preconceptions.
Whatever I see I swallow immediately
Just as it is, unmisted by love or dislike.
I am not cruel, only truthful—
The eye of a little god, four-cornered.
Most of the time I meditate on the opposite wall.
It is pink, with speckles. I have looked at it so long
I think it is part of my heart. But it flickers.
Faces and darkness separate us over and over.

In the stanza above, the speaker’s description of the opposite wall and the 'faces and darkness' that separate them functions as an extended metaphor that primarily illustrates which of the following?

Read the following poem by Christina Rossetti (1830–1894), published in 1862:

Remember me when I am gone away,
Gone far away into the silent land;
When you can no more hold me by the hand,
Nor I half turn to go yet turning stay.
Remember me when no more day by day
You tell me of our future that you planned:
Only remember me; you understand
It will be late then to counsel or pray.
Yet if you should forget me for a while
And afterwards remember, do not grieve:
For if the darkness and corruption leave
A vestige of the thoughts that once I had,
Better by far you should forget and smile
Than that you should remember and be sad.

In the context of the poem's thematic argumentation, how does the shift in the final six lines (the sestet) modify the speaker's initial demand for remembrance?

Read the following poem by Christina Rossetti (published in 1861) carefully:

Does the road wind up-hill all the way?
Yes, to the very end.
Will the day’s journey take the whole long day?
From morn to night, my friend.

But is there for the night a resting-place?
A roof for when the slow dark hours begin.
May not the darkness hide it from my face?
You cannot miss that inn.

Shall I meet other wayfarers at night?
Those who have gone before.
Then must I knock, or call when just in sight?
They will not keep you standing at that door.

Shall I find comfort, travel-worn and sore?
Of labour you shall find the sum.
Will there be beds for me and all who seek?
Yea, beds for all who come.

In the poem, how does the extended metaphor of the 'road' and the 'inn' function to convey the speaker's thematic argument?

Read the following poem by Emily Dickinson carefully before choosing your answer:

I like to see it lap the Miles -
And lick the Valleys up -
And stop to feed itself at Tanks -
And then, prodigious, step

Around a Pile of Mountains -
And supercilious peer
In Shanties - by the sides of Roads -
And then a Quarry pare

To fit its Ribs
And crawl between
Complaining all the while
In horrid - hooting stanza -
Then chase itself down Hill -

And neigh like Boanerges -
Then, prompter than a Star
Stop - docile and omnipotent -
At its own stable door -

In the context of the poem's extended metaphor, the description of the entity stopping "At its own stable door" (line 17) functions primarily to do which of the following?

Consider the following poem by Sir Walter Raleigh (written c. 1612):

What is our life? A play of passion;
Our mirth the music of division;
Our mothers' wombs the tiring-houses be,
Where we are drest for this short comedy.
Heaven the judicious sharp spectator is,
That sits and marks who doth act amiss;
Our graves that hide us from the searching sun
Are like drawn curtains when the play is done.
Thus march we playing to our latest rest,
Only we die in earnest, that's no jest.

In the poem, how does the final line ("Only we die... no jest") modify or shift the extended metaphor established in the preceding lines?

Read the following lines from Christina Rossetti’s poem "Remember," first published in 1862:

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

Which of the following best describes the function of the structural transition (the volta) in line 9 ("Yet if you should...")?