英国文学集 天真之歌(songs of innocence)

William Blake 天真之歌（songs of innocence） This article is about the William Blake poem. For other uses, see Lamb (disambiguation) Blake's illustration of "The Lamb" "The Lamb" is a poem by William Blake, published in Songs of Innocence in 1789. Like many of Blake's works, the poem is about Christianity. Background Like the other Songs of Innocence and Experience, The Lamb was intended to be sung; William Blake's original melody is now lost. It was made into a song by Vaughan Williams. It was also set to music by Sir John Tavener, who explained, "The Lamb came to me fully grown and was written in an afternoon and dedicated to my nephew Simon for his 3rd birthday." American poet Allen Ginsberg set the poem to music, along with several other of Blake's poems.[1] The Lamb can be compared to a more grandiose Blake poem: The Tyger in Songs of Experience. Critical analysis suggests that both poems, "The Lamb" and "The Tyger," question the Christian belief that God is good; if God is responsible for creating both the good things in life (the lamb) and the evil things (the tyger), how can God be good and moral?[original research?] The lamb in the poem may be compared to Jesus Christ, who is also known as "The Lamb of God".[2] Poetic structure This poem has a simple rhyme scheme : AA BB CC DD AA AA EF DD FE AA The layout is set up by two stanzas with the refrain: "Little Lamb who made thee?/Dost thou know who made thee?" In the first stanza, the speaker wonders who the lamb's creator is; the answer lies at the end of the poem. Here we find a physical description of the lamb, seen as a pure and gentle creature. In the second stanza, the lamb is compared with the infant Jesus, as well as between the lamb and the speaker's soul. In the last two lines the speaker identifies the creator: God. Holy Thursday (Songs of Innocence) Holy Thursday is a poem by William Blake, from his book of poems Songs of Innocence. (There is also a Holy Thursday poem in Songs of Experience, which contrasts this song.) The poem depicts a religious event carried on on a Holy Thursday, in which rows of clean children dressed in cheerful clothes walk into Saint Paul cathedral in a sort of procession, guided by beadles. Citizens of London town, including the aged man, sit and observe the ceremony while thousands of little boys and girls elevate their hands and a song is raised to Heaven. The poem is a criticism of the Foundling Hospital. Orphans at the hospital would be cleaned and marched annually to Saint Paul cathedral to sing. This was seen as a treat for the orphans. The bleak reality of their lives is depicted in Holy Thursday (Songs of Experience). The Chimney Sweeper is the title of two poems by William Blake, published in Songs of Innocence in 1789 and Songs of Experience in 1794.[1] In the earlier poem, a young chimney sweeper recounts a dream had by one of his fellows, in which an angel rescues the boys from coffins and takes them to a sunny meadow; in the later poem, an apparently adult speaker encounters a child chimney sweeper abandoned in the snow while his parents are at church. The Poems Songs of Innocence 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. 经验之歌(Songs of Experience)（1） 2010年01月12日 星期二 上午 09:41   Introduction Hear the voice of the Bard!Who Present, Past, & Future seesWhose ears have heard,The Holy Word,That walk'd among the ancient trees. Calling the lapsed SoulAnd weeping in the evening dew:That might control,The starry pole;And fallen fallen light renew! O Earth O Earth return!Arise from out the dewy grass;Night is worn,And the mornRises from the slumberous mass, Turn away no more:Why wilt thou turn awayThe starry floorThe watry shoreIs giv'n thee till the break of day. 经验之歌序诗 听那行吟诗人的声音！ 他看见现在、过去和未来。 他的耳朵听得见 那神圣的字眼 漫步在那古老的树林间。 呼唤那堕落的灵魂， 并且在夜晚的露珠中流泪； 也许可以支配 那灿烂的星座 又重新洒下、洒下光辉！ 哦，大地！哦，大地醒来！ 从那露珠沾湿的草地上升； 夜晚已消逝， 而黎明 从那困倦的人群中起身。 不要再转身离去 你为什么要转身离去 那星光闪闪照射的地面 那湿漉漉的海岸 都给予了你，直至晨曦。     Earth's Answer Earth rais'd up her head,From the darkness dread & drear.Her light fled:Stony dread!And her locks cover'd with grey despair. Prison'd on watry shoreStarry jealousy does keep my tentCold and hoarWeeping o'erI hear the Father of the ancient men Selfish father of menCruel jealous selfish fearCan delightChain'd in nightThe virgins of youth and morning bear. Does spring hide its joyWhen buds and blossoms grow?Does the sower?Sow by night?Or the plowman in darkness plow? Break this heavy chain,That does freeze my bones aroundSelfish! vain!Eternal bane!That free Love with bondage bound. 大地的回答 大地抬起她的头， 从那可怕又阴郁的黑暗中抬起， 她的光辉已遁去： 僵硬的恐惧！ 她的鬈发被灰灰的绝望遮蔽。 监禁在湿漉漉的海岸 繁星的嫉妒将我的小窝保存 冷酷又灰白 哭泣着走来 我听见古老人类的父亲 残酷的嫉妒的自私的胆战心惊 能够使得 在夜里锁着的 青春的处女与晨星欢欣， 春天可曾掩饰它的欢乐 当花苞和花朵都在成长？ 播种者呢？ 可在夜里播种？ 或者庄稼汉也在夜间耕种？ 打开这沉重的锁链， 它把我的周身骨头冻僵 自私！虚荣！ 永久的灭亡！ 将捆绑的爱情解放。     The Clod & the Pebble Love seeketh not Itself to please,Nor for itself hath any care;But for another gives its ease,And builds a Heaven in Hells despair. So sang a little Clod of Clay,Trodden with the cattles feet:But a Pebble of the brook,Warbled out these metres meet. Love seeketh only Self to please,To bind another to Its delight:Joys in anothers loss of ease,And builds a Hell in Heavens despite. 泥块和小石子 爱情并不想讨它的欢欣， 对它自己也丝毫不挂心； 只是为了别人才舍弃安宁， 在地狱的绝望中建立一座天庭。 一块小泥巴就这样唱着， 它被牛羊群踩来踩去； 但是溪流里有一块小石子， 它用颤音唱出了合拍的诗句。 爱情只想讨它自己的欢欣， 随心所欲地去束缚别人： 他看到别人失去安宁就高兴， 建立一座地狱来对抗天庭。     Holy Thursday Is this a holy thing to see,In a rich and fruitful land,Babes reduced to misery,Fed with cold and usurous hand? Is that trembling cry a song?Can it be a song of joy?And so many children poor?It is a land of poverty! And their sun does never shine.And their fields are bleak & bare.And their ways are fill'd with thorns.It is eternal winter there. For where-e'er the sun does shine,And where-e'er the rain does fall:Babe can never hunger there,Nor poverty the mind appall. 升天节 这难道是件神圣的事情， 在一个富饶的地方， 婴儿干瘦得十分凄惨， 竟让那冰冷的放债的手来喂养？ 那颤抖的叫声可算是支歌？ 它难道能是一曲欢快的歌唱？ 还有那么多的穷苦孩子？ 那原来是个穷瘠的地方！ 他们的太阳永远不会发光。 他们的田野是光秃秃的一片荒原。 他们的道路荆棘丛生， 那里就是永无止境的冬天。 因为只要哪里有阳光照耀， 只要哪里会降下甘霖： 婴儿就不会在那里挨饿，贫穷也不会威吓心灵。     The Little Girl Lost In futurityI prophetic see,That the earth from sleep,(Grave the sentence deep) Shall arise and seekFor her maker meek:And the desart wildBecome a garden mild.In the southern clime,Where the summers prime,Never fades away;Lovely Lyca lay. Seven summers oldLovely Lyca told,She had wanderd long,Hearing wild birds song. Sweet sleep come to meUnderneath this tree;Do father, mother weep.—Where can Lyca sleep. Lost in desart wildIs your little child. How can Lyca sleep,If her mother weep. If her heart does ake,Then let Lyca wake;If my mother sleep,Lyca shall not weep. Frowning frowning night,O'er this desart bright,Let thy moon arise,While I close my eyes.Sleeping Lyca lay;While the beasts of prey,Come from caverns deep,View'd the maid asleep The kingly lion stoodAnd the virgin view'd,Then he gambold roundO'er the hallowd ground; 小女孩的迷失 在未来的时日 我预先看到，宛如先知， 大地从睡眠中苏醒， （把这句话牢牢记在心） 将起身去寻觅 她和善的上帝： 那一片荒凉的沙漠 将变成温暖的花园一座。 在南方的地区 那里盛夏的时光， 永远不会消逝； 可爱的丽嘉躺卧在那方。 七个夏天已度过， 可爱的丽嘉说， 她一直在游荡 听着那野鸟歌唱。 甜蜜的睡眠来找我吧 就在这棵树下； 爸爸妈妈会不会流泪—— “丽嘉能在哪儿安睡？” 你们的小孩子 在荒凉的沙漠中迷失。 丽嘉怎么能安睡， 若是她妈妈在流泪。 若是妈妈在心疼， 那就让丽嘉仍清醒； 若是我的妈妈在安睡， 丽嘉也就不会流泪。 愁苦的愁苦的黑夜啊 笼罩着这明亮的荒野， 让你的月亮升起， 当我把我的眼睛禁闭。 当丽嘉躺卧着安眠 从深深的山洞里面 许多猛兽跑出来 观察着这熟睡的女孩。 狮王站在那里 观察着这个童女， 然后他来回跳跃嬉戏 在这块神圣的土地： 豹子 豹子、老虎也在玩耍， 就在她身边围绕； 这时那只年长的狮子 垂下他那一头金色的鬃毛， 便舔着她的胸膛， 他的眼睛灼灼有光， 流出红宝石般的眼泪， 滴落在她的颈项上； 这时母狮也来到身旁， 松开她纤细的衣裳， 它们把这熟睡的女孩 赤裸裸地搬到洞里来。     The Little Girl Found All the night in woe,Lyca's parents go:Over vallies deep,While the desarts weep. Tired and woe-begone,Hoarse with making moan:Arm in arm seven days,They trac'd the desart ways. Seven nights they sleep,Among shadows deep:And dream they see their childStarv'd in desart wild. Pale thro' pathless waysThe fancied image strays,Famish'd, weeping, weakWith hollow piteous shriek Rising from unrest,The trembling woman prest,With feet of weary woe;She could no further go. In his arms he bore,Her arm'd with sorrow sore;Till before their way,A couching lion lay. Turning back was vain,Soon his heavy mane,Bore them to the ground;Then he stalk'd around, Smelling to his prey.But their fears allay,When he licks their hands;And silent by them stands. They look upon his eyesFill'd with deep surprise:And wondering behold,A spirit arm'd in gold. On his head a crownOn his shoulders down,Flow'd his golden hair.Gone was all their care. Follow me he said,Weep not for the maid;In my palace deep,Lyca lies asleep. Then they followed,Where the vision led:And saw their sleeping child,Among tygers wild. To this day they dwellIn a lonely dellNor fear the wolvish howl,Nor the lions growl.       THE Chimney Sweeper A little black thing among the snow: Crying weep, weep, in notes of woe! Where are thy father & mother? say? They are both gone up to the church to pray. Because I was happy upon the heath, And smil'd among the winter's snow: They clothed me in the clothes of death, And taught me to sing the notes of woe. And because I am happy, & dance & sing, They think they have done me no injury: And are gone to praise God & his Priest & King Who make up a heaven of our misery. 扫烟囱孩子 风雪里一个满身乌黑的小东西 “扫呀，扫呀”在那里哭哭啼啼！ “你的爹娘上哪儿去了，你讲讲？” “他们呀都去祷告了，上了教堂。 “因为我原先在野地里欢欢喜喜， 我在冬天的雪地里也总是笑嘻嘻， 他们就把我拿晦气的黑衣裳一罩， 他们还教我唱起了悲伤的曲调。 “因为我显得快活，还唱歌，还跳舞， 他们就以为并没有把我害苦， 就跑去赞美了上帝、教士和国王， 夸他们拿我们苦难造成了天堂。”     Nurse's Song When the voices of children, are heard on the green And whisprings are in the dale: The days of my youth rise fresh in my mind, My face turns green and pale. Then come home my children, the sun is gone down And the dews of night arise Your spring & your day, are wasted in play And your winter and night in disguise.       The Sick Rose O Rose thou art sick. The invisible worm, That flies in the night In the howling storm: Has found out thy bed Of crimson joy: And his dark secret love Does thy life destroy. 病玫瑰 噢玫瑰，你病了！ 那无形的飞虫 乘着黑夜飞来了 在风暴呼号中。 找到了你的床 钻进红色的欢欣； 他的黑暗而隐秘的爱 毁了你的生命。     The Fly Little Fly Thy summers play, My thoughtless hand Has brush'd away. Am not I A fly like thee? Or art not thou A man like me? For I dance And drink & sing: Till some blind hand Shall brush my wing. If thought is life And strength & breath: And the want Of thought is death; Then am I A happy fly, If I live, Or if I die. 苍蝇 小苍蝇， 你夏天的游戏 给我的手 无心地抹去。 我岂不象你 是一只苍蝇？ 你岂不象我 是一个人？ 因为我跳舞， 又饮又唱， 直到一只盲手 抹掉我的翅膀。 如果思想是生命 呼吸和力量， 思想的缺乏 便等于死亡， 那么我就是 一只快活的苍蝇， 无论是死， 无论是生。     The Angel I Dreamt a Dream! what can it mean? And that I was a maiden Queen: Guarded by an Angel mild: Witless woe, was ne'er beguil'd! And I wept both night and day And he wip'd my tears away And I wept both day and night And hid from him my hearts delight So he took his wings and fled: Then the morn blush'd rosy red: I dried my tears & armed my fears, With ten thousand shields and spears, Soon my Angel came again; I was arm'd, he came in vain: For the time of youth was fled And grey hairs were on my head.       The Tyger Tyger Tyger, burning bright, In the forests of the night; What immortal hand or eye, Could frame thy fearful symmetry? In what distant deeps or skies. Burnt the fire of thine eyes? On what wings dare he aspire? What the hand, dare sieze the fire? And what shoulder, & what art, Could twist the sinews of thy heart? And when thy heart began to beat, What dread hand? & what dread feet? What the hammer? what the chain, In what furnace was thy brain? What the anvil? what dread grasp, Dare its deadly terrors clasp! When the stars threw down their spears And water'd heaven with their tears: Did he smile his work to see? Did he who made the Lamb make thee? Tyger Tyger burning bright, In the forests of the night: What immortal hand or eye, Dare frame thy fearful symmetry? 老虎 老虎！老虎！黑夜的森林中 燃烧着的煌煌的火光， 是怎样的神手或天眼 造出了你这样的威武堂堂？ 你炯炯的两眼中的火 燃烧在多远的天空或深渊？ 他乘着怎样的翅膀搏击？ 用怎样的手夺来火焰？ 又是怎样的膂力，怎样的技巧， 把你的心脏的筋肉捏成？ 当你的心脏开始搏动时， 使用怎样猛的手腕和脚胫？ 是怎样的槌？怎样的链子？ 在怎样的熔炉中炼成你的脑筋？ 是怎样的铁砧？怎样的铁臂 敢于捉着这可怖的凶神？ 群星投下了他们的投枪。 用它们的眼泪润湿了穹苍， 他是否微笑着欣赏他的作品？ 他创造了你，也创造了羔羊？ 老虎！老虎！黑夜的森林中 燃烧着的煌煌的火光， 是怎样的神手或天眼 造出了你这样的威武堂堂？     My Pretty ROSE TREE A flower was offerd to me; Such a flower as May never bore. But I said I've a Pretty Rose-tree: And I passed the sweet flower o'er. Then I went to my Pretty Rose-tree; To tend her by day and by night. But my Rose turnd away with jealousy: And her thorns were my only delight. 我漂亮的玫瑰树 有人送我一朵花， 五月里从没有这样的花。 但我说我有一棵漂亮的玫瑰树， 我就把这多可爱的花还给他。 然后我去看我漂亮的玫瑰树： 白天黑夜把她好好照应。 但我的玫瑰却嫉妒得掉头不顾； 而她的刺却成了我惟一的欢欣。         Holy Thursday (Songs of Experience) The primary objective of this poem is to question social and moral injustice. In the first stanza, Blake contrasts the "rich and fruitful land" with the actions of a "cold and usurous hand" - thereby continuing his questioning of the virtue of a society where resources are abundant but children are still "reduced to misery". "Holy" or "Maundy" Thursday refers to the Last Supper of Jesus and his disciples as recorded in the biblical New Testament. One particularly significant episode during that event was that of the master's washing of his disciples' feet - an act which signified the utmost humility in service. English monarchs and the wealthy traditionally used this festival for symbolic acts of charity: with the complementary poem in "Songs of Innocence", Blake pictures such an act, of which he appears to approve, carried out in St. Paul's Cathedral. However, our appreciation of the "wise guardians of the poor" thus advertising their charity may not be wholly shared by Blake's "Piper", the supposed narrator of the "Songs of Innocence". In their state of innocence, children should not be regimented; rather, they should be playing blithely on the "ecchoing green". The children in this poem 'assert and preserve their essential innocence not by going to church, but by freely and spontaneously, "like a mighty wind," raising to "heaven the voice of song." '[1] With his "Holy Thursday" of the "Songs of Experience", Blake's "Bard" clarifies his view of the hypocrisy of formalised religion and its claimed acts of charity. He exposes the established church's self-congratulatory hymns as a sham, suggesting in his second stanza that the sound which would represent the day more accurately would be the "trembling cry" of a poor child. The poet, as Bard, states that although England may be objectively a "rich and fruitful land", the unfeeling profit-orientated power of authority has designed for the innocent children suffering within it an "eternal winter". The biblical connotations of the rhetorical opening point us towards Blake's assertion that a country whose children live in want cannot be described as truly "rich". With the apparent contradiction of two climatic opposites existing simultaneously within the one geopolitical unit, we are offered a metaphor for England's man-made "two nations". Blake wrote during the "industrial revolution", whose pioneers congratulated themselves upon their vigorous increases in output. The poet argues that until increases in production are linked to more equitable distribution, England will always be a land of barren winter. London Analysis As with most of Blake's poetry, there are several critical interpretations of London. The most common interpretation, favored by critics such as Camille Paglia[2] and E.P. Thompson, holds that London is primarily a social protest. A less frequently held view is that of Harold Bloom; that London primarily is Blake's response to the tradition of Biblical prophecy. The use of the word 'Chartered' is ambiguous. It may express the political and economic control that Blake considered London to be enduring at the time of his writing. Blake's friend Thomas Paine had criticised the granting of Royal Charters to control trade as a form of class oppression.[3] However, 'chartered' could also mean 'freighted', and may refer to the busy or overburdened streets and river, or to the licenced trade carried on within them.[4] In Blake's notebook, the word 'chartered' originally read, 'dirty' In Thompson's view, Blake was an unorthodox Christian of the dissenting tradition, who felt that the state was abandoning those in need. He was heavily influenced by mystical groups.[5] The poem reflects Blake's extreme disillusionment with the suffering he saw in London.[6] The reference to a harlot blighting the 'marriage hearse' with 'plague' is usually understood to refer to the spread of venereal disease in the city, passed by a prostitute to a man and thence his bride, so that marriage can become a sentence of death.[7] The poem was published during the upheavals of the French Revolution, and the city of London was suffering political and social unrest, due to the marked social and working inequalities of the time. An understandably nervous government had responded by introducing restrictions on the freedom of speech and the mobilisation of foreign mercenaries.[citation needed] The City of London was a town that was shackled to landlords and owners that controlled and demeaned the majority of the lower and middle classes.[citation needed] Within the poem that bears the city's name, Blake describes 18th century London as a conurbation filled with people who understood, with depressing wisdom, both the hopelessness and misery of their situation Robert Burns Is There for Honest Poverty "Is There for Honest Poverty", commonly known as "A Man's a Man for A' That", is a Scots song by Robert Burns, famous for its expression of egalitarian ideas of society, which may be seen as anticipating the ideas of liberalism that arose in the 18th century, and those of socialism which arose in the 19th century. The poem also encompasses many freemasonic ideals and symbols. Alexander Pope Essay on Man Main article: An Essay on Man The Essay on Man is a philosophical poem, written in heroic couplets and published between 1732 and 1734. Pope intended this poem to be the centrepiece of a proposed system of ethics that was to be put forth in poetic form. It was a piece of work that Pope intended to make into a larger work; however, he did not live to complete it.[12] The Essay on Man is an attempt to justify the ways of God to Man, and that man is not himself the centre of all things. The essay is not solely Christian; however, it makes an assumption that man has fallen and must seek his own salvation.[12] The Essay on Man consists of four epistles that are addressed to Lord Bolingbroke. Pope presents an idea or his view on the Universe; he says that no matter how imperfect, complex, inscrutable and disturbing the Universe appears to be, it functions in a rational fashion according to the natural laws. The natural laws consider the Universe as a whole a perfect work of God. To humans it appears to be evil and imperfect in many ways; however, Pope points out that this is due to our limited mindset and limited intellectual capacity. Pope gets the message across that humans must accept their position in the "Great Chain of Being" which is at a middle stage between the angels and the beasts of the world. If we are able to accomplish this then we potentially could lead happy and virtuous lives.[12] The Essay on Man is an affirmative poem of faith: life seems to be chaotic and confusing to man when he is in the center of it, but according to Pope it is really divinely ordered. In Pope's world God exists and is what he centers the Universe around in order to have an ordered structure. The limited intelligence of man can only take in tiny portions of this order and can experience only partial truths, hence man must rely on hope which then leads into faith. Man must be aware of his existence in the Universe and what he brings to it, in terms of riches, power and fame. It is man's duty to strive to be good regardless of other situations: this is the message Pope is trying to get across to the reader.[13] The essay, written in heroic couplets, comprises four epistles. Pope began work on it in 1729, and had finished the first three by 1731. However, they did not appear until early 1733, with the fourth epistle published the following year. The poem was originally published anonymously; Pope did not admit authorship until 1735. Pope reveals in his introductory statement, "The Design," that An Essay on Man was originally conceived as part of a longer philosophical poem, with four separate books. What we have today would comprise the first book. The second was to be a set of epistles on human reason, arts and sciences, human talent, as well as the use of learning, science, and wit "together with a satire against the misapplications of them." The third book would discuss politics, and the fourth book "private ethics" or "practical morality." Often quoted is the following passage, the first verse paragraph of the second book, which neatly summarizes some of the religious and humanistic tenets of the poem: Know then thyself, presume not God to scan The proper study of Mankind is Man. Placed on this isthmus of a middle state, A Being darkly wise, and rudely great: With too much knowledge for the Sceptic side, With too much weakness for the Stoic's pride, He hangs between; in doubt to act, or rest; In doubt to deem himself a God, or Beast; In doubt his mind or body to prefer; Born but to die, and reas'ning but to err; Alike in ignorance, his reason such, Whether he thinks too little, or too much; Chaos of Thought and Passion, all confus'd; Still by himself, abus'd or disabus'd; Created half to rise and half to fall; Great Lord of all things, yet a prey to all, Sole judge of truth, in endless error hurl'd; The glory, jest and riddle of the world. In the above passage Pope says that man's business is to study himself and not God. He should not pry into the reasons behind God's actions. He then speaks about the nature of man, the limits of his powers and wisdom and his frailties. Pope says that man hangs somewhere between knowledge and ignorance. Pope says that Man seeks knowledge but is bound by the passions and weaknesses of his body. He is between God and the Beast. His passions are divided between the mind and the body. Pope says that man often makes errors and lives a confused life- a chaos of "thought and passion". And then Pope talks about science and what man can achieve through it: Go, wondrous creature! mount where science guides, Go, measure earth, weigh air, and state the tides; Instruct the planets in what orbs to run, Correct old time, and regulate the sun; Go, soar with Plato to th’ empyreal sphere, To the first good, first perfect, and first fair; Or tread the mazy round his followers trod, And quitting sense call imitating God; As Eastern priests in giddy circles run, And turn their heads to imitate the sun. Go, teach Eternal Wisdom how to rule— Then drop into thyself, and be a fool! The first four lines are very inspiring and show the power of science and what man has achieved through the scientific method. Note that this poem was written when Newtonian physics was making great progress. Pope says that man has learnt a lot about Nature and God's creation by using science. Science has given man power but man intoxicated by this power thinks that he is "imitating God". In the last part of this passage Pope compares scientists with priests from the far east who run around in circles and turn their heads to imitate sun's motion. Pope then tells man that he cannot tell "Eternal Wisdom" how this universe has to be run. He then uses the word "fool" to show how little he(man) knows inspite of the great progress made by science. The Rape of the Lock The Rape of the Lock is a mock-heroic narrative poem written by Alexander Pope, first published anonymously in Lintot's Miscellany in May 1712 in two cantos (334 lines), but then revised, expanded and reissued under Pope's name on March 2, 1714, in a much-expanded 5-canto version (794 lines). The final form was available in 1717 with the addition of Clarissa's speech on good humor. The Poem The poem satirises a petty squabble by comparing it to the epic world of the gods. It was based on an incident recounted by Pope's friend, John Caryll. Arabella Fermor and her suitor, Lord Petre, were both from aristocratic recusant Catholic families at a period in England when all denominations except Anglicanism suffered legal restrictions and penalties (for example Petre could not take up his place in the House of Lords as a Catholic). Petre, lusting after Arabella, had cut off a lock of her hair without permission, and the consequent argument had created a breach between the two families. Pope, also a Catholic, wrote the poem at the request of friends in an attempt to "comically merge the two." He utilised the character Belinda to represent Arabella and introduced an entire system of "sylphs," or guardian spirits of virgins, a parodic version of the gods and goddesses of conventional epic. Pope’s poem mocks the traditions of classical epics: the abduction of Helen of Troy becomes here the theft of a lock of hair; the gods become minute sylphs; the description of Achilles’ shield becomes an excursus on one of Belinda’s petticoats. He also uses the epic style of invocations, lamentations, exclamations and similes, and in some cases adds parody to imitation by following the framework of actual speeches in Homer’s Iliad. Although the poem is humorous at times, Pope keeps a sense that beauty is fragile, and that the loss of a lock of hair touches Belinda deeply. As his introductory letter makes clear, women in that period were essentially supposed to be decorative rather than rational, and the loss of beauty was a serious matter. The humour of the poem comes from the tempest in a teapot of vanity being couched within the elaborate, formal verbal structure of an epic poem. Three of Uranus's moons are named after characters from The Rape of the Lock: Belinda, Umbriel, and Ariel, the last name also (previously) appearing in Shakespeare's The Tempest. It is one of the most commonly cited examples of high burlesque. William Wordsworth Tintern Abbey (poem) Tintern Abbey, 1993 "Lines composed a few miles above Tintern Abbey on revisiting the banks of the Wye during a tour, July 13, 1798"[1] (often abbreviated to "Tintern Abbey", "Lines written a few miles above Tintern Abbey" or simply "Lines") is a poem by William Wordsworth. Tintern Abbey is a real-life abbey abandoned in 1536 and located in the southern Welsh county of Monmouthshire. The poem is of particular interest in that Wordsworth's descriptions of the Banks of Wye outline his general philosophies on nature. It also has significance as the terminal poem of Lyrical Ballads, although it does not fit well into the titular category, being more protracted and elaborate than its predecessors. It was, however, the only poem in Wordsworth's oeuvre of which he did not revise even a word for later publications, saying of it that he never wrote under circumstances more congenial. Themes and context "Tintern Abbey" is a poem of re-visitation, both to the central themes of the Advertisement, and to nature itself. Wordsworth returns to the abbey after a five-year absence, having changed so much that "I cannot paint / What then I was",[2] having then had no knowledge of the sublime, and no "feeling" towards nature. To emphasize the reminiscent quality of the poem, he uses the word "again" repeatedly. The poem has its roots in history. Accompanied by his sister Dorothy (whom he addresses warmly in the final paragraph as "thou my dearest Friend, / My dear, dear Friend"[3]), Wordsworth did indeed revisit the abbey on the date stipulated after half a decade's absence. His previous visit had been on a solitary walking tour as a twenty-three-year-old in August 1793. His life had since taken a considerable turn: he had split with his French lover and their illegitimate daughter, while on a broader note Anglo-French tensions had escalated to such an extent that Britain would declare war later that year. The Wye, on the other hand, had remained much the same, according the poet opportunity for contrast. A large portion of the poem explores the impact of preterition, contrasting the obviousness of it in the visitor with its seamlessness in the visited. This theme is emphasized from the start in the line "Five years have passed..."[4] Although written in 1798, the poem is in large part a recollection of Wordsworth's visit of 1793. It also harks back in the imagination to a time when the abbey was not in ruins, and dwells occasionally on the present and the future as well. The speaker admits to having reminisced about the place many times in the past five years. Notably, the abbey itself is nowhere described. Wordsworth claimed to have composed the poem entirely in his head, beginning it upon leaving Tintern and crossing the Wye, and not jotting so much as a line until he reached Bristol, by which time it had just reached mental completion. In all, it took him four to five days' rambling about with his sister.[5] Although Lyrical Ballads was by then already in publication, he was so pleased with this offering that he had it inserted at the eleventh hour, as the concluding poem. It is unknown whether this placement was intentional, but scholars generally agree that it is apt, for the poem represents the climax of Wordsworth's first great period of creative output and prefigures much of the distinctively Wordsworthian verse that followed. Although never overt, the poem is riddled with religion, most of it pantheistic. Wordsworth styles himself as a "worshipper of Nature" with a "far deeper zeal / Of holier love",[6] seeming to hold that mental images of nature can engender a mystical intuition of the divine. Style and structure The poem is written in tightly-structured blank verse and comprises verse-paragraphs rather than stanzas. It is unrhymed and mostly in iambic pentameter. Categorising the poem is difficult, as it contains elements of all of the ode, the dramatic monologue and the conversation poem. In the second edition of Lyrical Ballads, Wordsworth noted: I have not ventured to call this Poem an Ode but it was written with a hope that in the transitions, and the impassioned music of the versification would be found the principle requisites of that species of composition. At its beginning, it may well be dubbed an Eighteenth-Century "landscape-poem", but it is commonly agreed that the best designation would be the conversation poem.[7] Lines 1-24 Revisiting the natural beauty of the Wye fills the poet with a sense of "tranquil restoration". Line 37 By the "sublime", Wordsworth means a type of divine creativity or inspiration. This was a theme much in vogue during the Romantic period. Lines 35-49 Wordsworth says that the gifts given him by the abbey (such as "tranquil restoration") have in so doing accorded him yet another, still more sublime: it has relieved him of a giant burden -- his doubts about God, religion and the meaning of life. Lines 88-103 After contemplating the few changes in scenery since last he visited, Wordsworth is overcome with "a sense sublime of something far more deeply interfused, whose dwelling is the light of setting suns".[8] He is met with the divine as "a motion and a spirit, that impels all thinking things, all objects of thought, and rolls through all things".[9] These are perhaps the most telling lines in Wordsworth's connection of the "sublime" with "divine creativity", the result of allowing nature to become "the anchor of my purest thoughts, the nurse, the guide, the guardian of my heart, and soul of all my moral being".[10] Lines 114-160 In the final stanza, Wordsworth addresses his sister, who did not accompany him on his original visit to the abbey, and perceives in the delight she shows at the resplendence and serenity of their environs a poignant echo of his former self. She dwelt among the untrodden ways William Wordsworth, author of "She Dwelt among the Untrodden Ways ". "She dwelt among the untrodden ways" is a three-stanza poem written by the English Romantic poet William Wordsworth in 1798 when he was 28 years old. The verse was first printed in Lyrical Ballads, 1800, a volume of Wordsworth's and Samuel Taylor Coleridge's poems that marked a climacteric in the English Romantic movement. The poem is the best known of Wordsworth's series of five works which comprise his "Lucy" series, and was a favourite amongst early readers.[1] It was composed both as a meditation on his own feelings of loneliness and loss, and as an ode to the beauty and dignity of an idealised woman who lived unnoticed by all others except by the poet himself. The title line implies Lucy lived unknown and remote, both physically and intellectually. The poet's subject's isolated sensitivity expresses a characteristic aspect of Romantic expectations of the human, and especially of the poet's, condition. According to the literary critic Kenneth Ober, the poem describes the "growth, perfection, and death" of Lucy.[2] Whether Wordsworth has declared his love for her is left ambivalent, and even whether she had been aware of the poet's affection is unsaid. However the poet's feelings remain unrequited, and his final verse reveals that the subject of his affections has died alone. Lucy's "untrodden ways" are symbolic to the poet of both her physical isolation and the unknown details of her mind and life. In the poem, Wordsworth is concerned not so much with his observation of Lucy, but with his experience when reflecting on her passing.[3] Structure and style "She dwelt" consists of three quatrains, and describes a woman, Lucy, who lived in solitude near the source of the River Dove.[4] In order to convey the dignity and unaffected flowerlike naturalness of his subject, Wordsworth uses simple language, mainly words of one syllable. In the opening quatrain, he describes the isolated and untouched area where Lucy lived, while her innocence is explored in the second, during which her beauty is compared to that of a hidden flower. The final stanza laments Lucy's early and lonesome death, which only he alone notices. Throughout the poem, sadness and ecstasy are intertwined, a fact emphasised by the exclamation marks in the second and third verses. The effectiveness of the concluding line in the concluding stanza has divided critics and has variously been described as "a masterstroke of understatement" and overtly sentimental. Wordsworth's voice remains largely muted, and he was equally silent about the poem and series throughout his life.[1] This fact was often mentioned by 19th century critics, however they disagreed as to its value. A critic, writing in 1851, remarked on the poem's "deep but subdued and silent devour."[5] This is written with an economy and spareness intended to capture the simplicity the poet sees in Lucy. Lucy's femininity is described in the verse in girlish terms, a fact that has drawn criticism from some critics that see a female icon, in the words of John Woolford "represented in Lucy by condemning her to death while denying her the actual or symbolic fulfillment of maternity".[6] To evoke the "loveliness of body and spirit", a pair of complementary but opposite images are employed in the second stanza: a solitary violet, unseen and hidden, and Venus, emblem of love, and the first star of evening, public and visible to all.[2] Wondering which Lucy most resembled—the violet or the star—the critic Cleanth Brooks concluded that although Wordsworth likely viewed her as "the single star, completely dominating [his] world, not arrogantly like the sun, but sweetly and modestly". Brooks considered the metaphor only vaguely relevant, and a conventional and anomalous complement.[7] For Wordsworth, Lucy's appeal is closer to the violet and lies in her seclusion, and her perceived affinity with nature.[6] Wordsworth purchased a copy of Thomas Percy's collection of British ballad material "Reliques of Ancient English Poetry" in Hamburg a few months before he began to compose the Lucy series. The influence of traditional English folk ballad is evident in the meter, rhythm, and structure of the poem. She Dwelt among the Untrodden Ways follows the variant ballad stanza a4—b3—a4 b3,[2] and in keeping with ballad tradition seeks to tell its story in a dramatic manner.[8] As the critic Kenneth Ober observed, "To confuse the mode of the 'Lucy' poems with that of the love lyric is to overlook their structure, in which, as in the traditional ballad, a story is told as boldly and briefly as possible."[2] Ober compares the opening lines of She Dwelt among the Untrodden Ways to the traditional ballad Katharine Jaffray and notes the similarities in rhythm and structure, as well as in theme and imagery: There livd a lass in yonder dale, And doun in yonder glen, O. And Katherine Jaffray was her name, Well known by many men, O.[2] According to the critic Carl Woodring, "She Dwelt" can also be read as an elegy. He views the poem and the Lucy series in general as elegiac "in the sense of sober meditation on death or a subject related to death", and that they have "the economy and the general air of epitaphs in the Greek Anthology....if all elegies are mitigations of death, the Lucy poems are also meditations on simple beauty, by distance made more sweet and by death preserved in distance".[9] One passage was originally intended for the poem "Michael"–"Renew'd their search begun where from Dove Crag / Ill home for bird so gentle / they look'd down / On Deep-dale Head, and Brothers-water".[10] Lucy Wordsworth wrote his series of "Lucy" poems during a stay with his sister Dorothy in Hamburg, Germany, between October 1798 and April 1801.[11] The real life identity of Lucy has never been identified, and it is probable that she was not modeled on any one historical person.[12] Wordsworth himself never addressed the matter of her persona,[11] and was reticent about commenting on the series.[1] Although a great detail is known of the circumstances and details of Wordsworth's life, from the time he spend during of his stay in Germany comparatively little record survives. Only one known mention from the poet that references the series survives, and that mentions the series only, and not any of the individual verses.[13] The literary historian Kenneth Johnson concluded that Lucy was created as the personification of Wordsworth's muse, and the group as a whole is a series of invocations to a Muse feared dead. As epitaphs, they are not sad, a very inadequate word to describe them, but breathlessly, almost aware of what such a loss would mean to the speaker: 'oh, the difference to me!'[14] Writing in the mid-nineteenth century, Thomas DeQuincey said that Wordsworth, always preserved a mysterious silence on the subject of that 'Lucy', repeatedly alluded to or apostrophised in his poems, and I have heard, from gossiping people about Hawkshead, some snatches of tragic story, which, after all, might be an idle semi-fable, improved out of slight materials.[15] Pencil drawing of William's sister Dorothy Wordsworth in later life. Lucy's identity has been the subject of much speculation,[16] and some have guessed that the poems are an attempt by Wordsworth to voice his affection for Dorothy;[17] this line of thought reasoning that the poems dramatise Wordsworth's feelings of grief for her inevitable death. Soon after the series was completed, Coleridge wrote, "Some months ago Wordsworth transmitted to me a most sublime Epitaph / whether it had any reality, I cannot say. - Most probably, in some gloomier moment he had fancied the moment in which his Sister might die."[18] Reflecting on the importance and relevance of Lucy's identity, the nineteenth-century literary critic Frederic Myers said, "Here it was that the memory of some emotion prompted the lines on Lucy. Of the history of that emotion, he has told us nothing; I forbear, therefore, to inquire concerning it, or even to speculate. That it was to the poet's honour, I do not doubt; but who ever learned such secrets rightly? Or who should wish to learn? It is best to leave the sanctuary of all hearts inviolate, and to respect the reserve not only of the living but of the dead. Of these poems, almost alone, Wordsworth in his autobiographical notes has said nothing whatever."[19] According to Karl Kroeber, Wordsworth's Lucy possesses a double existence, her actual, historical existence and her idealised existence in the poet's mind. The latter is created out of the former but neither an abstraction nor a conceptualisation, because the idealised Lucy is at least as "concrete" as the actual Lucy. In the poem, Lucy is both actual and idealised, but her actuality is relevant only insofar as it makes manifest the signifiance implicit in the actual girl.[20] Lucy is thought by others to represent his childhood friend Peggy Hutchinson, with whom he was in love before her early death in 1796—Wordsworth later married Peggy's sister, Mary.[21] Place among the 'Lucy' series Main article: The Lucy poems Wordsworth established himself, according to the critic Norman Lacey, as a "poet of nature" in his volume "Lyrical Ballads" in which "She Dwelt" first appeared.[22] Early works, such as Tintern Abbey, can be seen as an ode to his experience of nature (though he preferred to avoid this interpretation), or as a lyrical meditation on the fundamental character of the natural world. Wordsworth later recalled that as a youth nature once stirred in him, "an appetite, a feeling and a love", but by the time he wrote "Lyrical Ballads", it evoked "the still sad music of humanity".[23] The five 'Lucy' poems are often interpreted as representing both his apposing views of nature and a meditation on natural cycle of life.[24] "Strange fits" presents "Kind Nature's gentlest boon", "Three years" its duality, and "A slumber", according to the American literary critic Cleanth Brooks, the clutter of natural object.[25] In Jones view, "She dwelt", along with "I travelled", represents its "rustication and disappearance".[24] Parodies "She dwelt.." has been parodied numerous times since it was first published. In part, parodies of earlier works were intended to remark on the simplification of textual complexities and deliberate ambiguities in poetry, and on the way many 19th century critics sought to establish a 'definitive' reasonings. According to Jones, such parodies sought to comment in a "meta-critical" manner, and to present an alternative mode of criticism to the then mainstream mode.[26] Among the more notable are those by Hartley Coleridge ("A Bard whom there were none to praise, / And very few to read") in 1834, and Samuel Butler's 1888 murder-mystery reading of the poem. Butler believed Wordsworth's use of the phrase "the difference to me!" was overtly terse, and remarked that the poet was "most careful not to explain the nature of the difference which the death of Lucy will occasion him to be...The superficial reader takes it that he is very sorry she was dead...but he has not said this."[1] These parodies were intended to question definitive interpretation of the verse, and highlight its indeterminacies Percy bysshe shelley Ode to the West Wind Structure The poem Ode to the West Wind consists of five cantos written in terza rima. Each canto consists of four tercets (ABA, BCB, CDC, DED) and a rhyming couplet (EE). The Ode is written in iambic pentameter. The poem begins with three cantos describing the wind's effects upon earth, air, and ocean. The last two cantos are Shelley speaking directly to the wind, asking for its power, to lift him like a leaf, a cloud or a wave and make him its companion in its wanderings. He asks the wind to take his thoughts and spread them all over the world so that the youth are awoken with his ideas. The poem ends with an optimistic note which is that if winter days are here then spring is not very far. Interpretation of the poem The poem Ode to the West Wind can be divided in two parts: the first three cantos are about the qualities of the ‘Wind’ and end each with the invocation ‘Oh hear!’. The last two cantos give a relation between the ‘Wind’ and the speaker. First Canto The first stanza begins with the alliteration ‘wild West Wind’(1.1). The form of the apostrophe makes the wind also a personification. However, one must not think of this ‘Ode’ as an optimistic praise of the wind; it is clearly associated with autumn. The first few lines contain sinister elements, such as ‘leaves dead’ (l. 2), the aspect of death being highlighted by the inversion which puts ‘dead’ (l. 2) at the end of the line. These leaves haunt as ‘ghosts’ (l. 3) that flee from something that panics them. ‘chariotest’ (l. 6) is the second person singular. The ‘corpse within its grave’ (l. 8) in the next line is in contrast to the ‘azure sister of the Spring’ (l. 9) – a reference to the east wind – whose ‘living hues and odours’ (l.12) evoke a strong contrast to the colors of the fourth line of the poem that evoke death. In the last line of this canto the west wind is considered the ‘Destroyer’ (l. 14) because it drives the last signs of life from the trees, and the ‘Preserver’ (l.14) for scattering the seeds which will come to life in the spring. Second Canto The second canto of the poem is much more fluid than the first one. The sky’s ‘clouds’ (l. 16) are ‘like earth’s decaying leaves’ (l. 16). They are a reference to the second line of the first canto (‘leaves dead’, l. 2).They also are numerous in number like the dead leaves. Through this reference the landscape is recalled again. The ‘clouds’ (l. 16) are ‘Shook from the tangled boughs of Heaven and Ocean’ (l. 17). This probably refers to the fact that the line between the sky and the stormy sea is indistinguishable and the whole space from the horizon to the zenith is covered with trailing storm clouds. The ‘clouds’ can also be seen as ‘Angels of rain’ (l. 18). In a biblical way, they may be messengers that bring a message from heaven down to earth through rain and lightning. These two natural phenomena with their “fertilizing and illuminating power” bring a change. Line 21 begins with ‘Of some fierce Maenad ...’ (l. 21) and again the west wind is part of the second canto of the poem; here he is two things at once: first he is ‘dirge/Of the dying year’ (l. 23f) and second he is “a prophet of tumult whose prediction is decisive”; a prophet who does not only bring ‘black rain, and fire, and hail’ (l. 28), but who ‘will burst’ (l. 28) it. The ‘locks of the approaching storm’ (l. 23) are the messengers of this bursting: the ‘clouds’. Shelley also mentions that when the West Wind blows, it seems to be singing a funeral song about the year coming to an end and that the sky covered with a dome of clouds looks like a 'sepulchre' i.e a burial chamber or grave for the dying year or the year which is coming to an end. Shelley in this canto “expands his vision from the earthly scene with the leaves before him to take in the vaster commotion of the skies”. This means that the wind is now no longer at the horizon and therefore far away, but he is exactly above us. The clouds now reflect the image of the swirling leaves; this is a parallelism that gives evidence that we lifted “our attention from the finite world into the macrocosm”. The ‘clouds’ can also be compared with the leaves; but the clouds are more unstable and bigger than the leaves and they can be seen as messengers of rain and lightning as it was mentioned above. Third Canto This refers to the effect of west wind in water. The question that comes up when reading the third canto at first is what the subject of the verb ‘saw’ (l. 33) could be. On the one hand there is the ‘blue Mediterranean’ (l. 30). With the ‘Mediterranean’ as subject of the canto, the “syntactical movement” is continued and there is no break in the fluency of the poem; it is said that ‘he lay, / Lull’d by the coil of his crystalline streams,/Beside a pumice isle in Baiae’s bay, / And saw in sleep old palaces and towers’ (l. 30–33). On the other hand it is also possible that the lines of this canto refer to the ‘wind’ again. Then the verb that belongs to the ‘wind’ as subject is not ‘lay’, but the previous line of this canto, that says ‘Thou who didst waken ... And saw’ (l. 29, 33). But whoever – the ‘Mediterranean’ or the ‘wind’ – ‘saw’ (l. 33) the question remains whether the city one of them saw, is real and therefore a reflection on the water of a city that really exists on the coast; or the city is just an illusion. Pirie is not sure of that either. He says that it might be “a creative you interpretation of the billowing seaweed; or of the glimmering sky reflected on the heaving surface”. Both possibilities seem to be logical. To explain the appearance of an underwater world, it might be easier to explain it by something that is realistic; and that might be that the wind is able to produce illusions on the water. With its pressure, the wind “would waken the appearance of a city”. From what is known of the ‘wind’ from the last two cantos, it became clear that the ‘wind’ is something that plays the role of a Creator. Whether the wind creates real things or illusions does not seem to be that important. Baiae's bay (at the northern end of the Gulf of Naples) actually contains visible Roman ruins underwater (that have been shifted due to earthquakes.) Obviously the moss and flowers are seaweed. It appears as if the third canto shows – in comparison with the previous cantos – a turning-point. Whereas Shelley had accepted death and changes in life in the first and second canto, he now turns to “wistful reminiscence [, recalls] an alternative possibility of transcendence”. From line 26 to line 36 he gives an image of nature. But if we look closer at line 36, we realise that the sentence is not what it appears to be at first sight, because it obviously means ‘so sweet that one feels faint in describing them’. This shows that the idyllic picture is not what it seems to be and that the harmony will certainly soon be destroyed. A few lines later, Shelley suddenly talks about ‘fear’ (l. 41). This again shows the influence of the west wind which announces the change of the season. Fourth Canto Whereas the cantos one to three began with ‘O wild West Wind’ (l. 1) and ‘Thou...’ (l. 15, 29) and were clearly directed to the wind, there is a change in the fourth canto. The focus is no more on the ‘wind’, but on the speaker who says ‘If I...’ (l. 43f). Until this part, the poem has appeared very anonymous and was only concentrated on the ‘wind’ and its forces so that the author of the poem was more or less forgotten. Pirie calls this “the suppression of personality” which finally vanishes at that part of the poem. It becomes more and more clear that what the author talks about now is himself. That this must be true, shows the frequency of the author’s use of the first-person pronouns ‘I’ (l. 43, 44, 48, 51, 54), ‘my’ (l. 48, 52) and ‘me’ (l. 53). These pronouns appear nine times in the fourth canto. Certainly the author wants to dramatise the atmosphere so that the reader recalls the situation of canto one to three. He achieves this by using the same pictures of the previous cantos in this one. Whereas these pictures, such as ‘leaf’, ‘cloud’ and ‘wave’ have existed only together with the ‘wind’, they are now existing with the author. The author thinks about being one of them and says ‘If I were a ...’ (l. 43ff). Shelley here identifies himself with the wind, although he knows that he cannot do that, because it is impossible for someone to put all the things he has learned from life aside and enter a “world of innocence”. That Shelley is deeply aware of his closedness in life and his identity shows his command in line 53. There he says ‘Oh, lift me up as a wave, a leaf, a cloud’ (l. 53). He knows that this is something impossible to achieve, but he does not stop praying for it. The only chance Shelley sees to make his prayer and wish for a new identity with the Wind come true is by pain or death, as death leads to rebirth. So, he wants to ‘fall upon the thorns of life’ and ‘bleed’ (l. 54). At the end of the canto the poet tells us that ‘a heavy weight of hours has chain’d and bow’d’ (l. 55). This may be a reference to the years that have passed and ‘chained and bowed’ (l. 55) the hope of the people who fought for freedom and were literally imprisoned. With this knowledge, the West Wind becomes a different meaning. The wind is the ‘uncontrollable’ (l. 47) who is ‘tameless’ (l. 56). One more thing that one should mention is that this canto sounds like a kind of prayer or confession of the poet. This confession does not address God and therefore sounds very impersonal. Shelley also changes his use of metaphors in this canto. In the first cantos the wind was a metaphor explained at full length. Now the metaphors are only weakly presented – ‘the thorns of life’ (l. 54). Shelley also leaves out the fourth element: the fire. In the previous cantos he wrote about the earth, the air and the water. The reader now expects the fire – but it is not there. This leads to a break in the symm Fifth Canto Again the wind is very important in this last canto. At the beginning of the poem the ‘wind’ was only capable of blowing the leaves from the trees. In the previous canto the poet identified himself with the leaves. In this canto the ‘wind’ is now capable of using both of these things mentioned before. Everything that had been said before was part of the elements – wind, earth and water. Now the fourth element comes in: the fire. There is also a confrontation in this canto: whereas in line 57 Shelley writes ‘me thy’, there is ‘thou me’ in line 62. This “signals a restored confidence, if not in the poet’s own abilities, at least in his capacity to communicate with [...] the Wind”. It is also necessary to mention that the first-person pronouns again appear in a great frequency; but the possessive pronoun ‘my’ predominates. Unlike the frequent use of the ‘I’ in the previous canto that made the canto sound self-conscious, this canto might now sound self-possessed. The canto is no more a request or a prayer as it had been in the fourth canto – it is a demand. The poet becomes the wind’s instrument – his ‘lyre’ (l. 57). This is a symbol of the poet’s own passivity towards the wind; he becomes his musician and the wind’s breath becomes his breath. The poet’s attitude towards the wind has changed: in the first canto the wind has been an ‘enchanter’ (l. 3), now the wind has become an ‘incantation’ (l. 65). And there is another contrast between the two last cantos: in the fourth canto the poet had articulated himself in singular: ‘a leaf’ (l. 43, 53), ‘a cloud’ (l. 44, 53), ‘A wave’ (l. 45, 53) and ‘One too like thee’ (l. 56). In this canto, the “sense of personality as vulnerably individualised led to self-doubt” and the greatest fear was that what was ‘tameless, and swift, and proud’ (l. 56) will stay ‘chain’d and bow’d’ (l. 55). The last canto differs from that. The poet in this canto uses plural forms, for example, ‘my leaves’ (l. 58, 64), ‘thy harmonies’ (l. 59), ‘my thoughts’ (l. 63), ‘ashes and sparks’ (l. 67) and ‘my lips’ (l. 68). By the use of the plural, the poet is able to show that there is some kind of peace and pride in his words. It even seems as if he has redefined himself because the uncertainty of the previous canto has been blown away. The ‘leaves’ merge with those of an entire forest and ‘Will’ become components in a whole tumult of mighty harmonies. The use of this ‘Will’ (l. 60) is certainly a reference to the future. Through the future meaning, the poem itself does not only sound as something that might have happened in the past, but it may even be a kind of ‘prophecy’ (l. 69) for what might come – the future. At last, Shelley again calls the Wind in a kind of prayer and even wants him to be ‘his’ Spirit: he says: ‘My spirit! Be thou me, impetuous one!’ (l. 62). Like the leaves of the trees in a forest, his leaves will fall and decay and will perhaps soon flourish again when the spring comes. That may be why he is looking forward to the spring and asks at the end of the last canto ‘If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?’ (l. 70). This is of course a rhetorical question because spring does come after winter, but the "if" suggests that it might not come if the rebirth is strong and extensive enough, and if it is not, another renewal---spring---will come anyway. Thus the question has a deeper meaning and does not only mean the change of seasons, but is a reference to death and rebirth as well. It also indicates that after the struggles and problems in life, there would always be a solution. It shows us the optimistic view of the poet about life which he would like the world to know. It is an interpretation of his saying 'If you are suffering now, there will be good times ahead.' But the most powerful call to the Wind are the lines: "Drive my dead thoughts over the universe/like withered leaves to quicken a new birth!" Here Shelley is imploring---or really chanting to---the Wind to blow away all of his useless thoughts so that he can be a vessel for the Wind and, as a result, awaken the Earth. Conclusion This poem is a highly controlled text about the role of the poet as the agent of political and moral change. This was a subject Shelley wrote a great deal about, especially around 1819, with this strongest version of it articulated the last famous lines of his "Defence of Poetry": "Poets are the hierophants of an unapprehended inspiration; the mirrors of the gigantic shadows which futurity casts upon the present; the words which express what they understand not; the trumpets which sing to battle, and feel not what they inspire; the influence which is moved not, but moves. Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world." John Keats Ode to a Nightingale "Ode to a Nightingale" is a poem by John Keats written in May 1819 in either the garden of the Spaniards Inn, or, as according to Charles Brown, under a plum tree in the garden of Keats House Hampstead, London. According to Keats's friend, Charles Armitage Brown, a nightingale had built its nest near his home in the spring of 1819. Inspired by the bird's song, Keats composed the poem in one day. It soon became one of his 1819 odes and was first published in Annals of the Fine Arts the following July. "Ode to a Nightingale" is a personal poem that describes Keats' journey into the state of Negative Capability. The tone of the poem rejects the optimistic pursuit of pleasure found within Keats's earlier poems, and it explores the themes of nature, transience and mortality, the latter being particularly personal to Keats. The nightingale described within the poem experiences a type of death but it does not actually die. Instead, the songbird is capable of living through its song, which is a fate that humans cannot expect. The poem ends with an acceptance that pleasure cannot last and that death is an inevitable part of life. In the poem, Keats imagines the loss of the physical world and sees himself dead—as a "sod" over which the nightingale sings. The contrast between the immortal nightingale and mortal man, sitting in his garden, is made all the more acute by an effort of the imagination. The presence of weather is noticeable in the poem, as spring came early in 1819, which brought nightingales all over the heath. Many critics favor "Ode to a Nightingale" for its themes but some believe that it is structurally flawed because the poem sometimes strayed from its main idea. Structure "Ode to Nightingale" was probably the first of the middle set of four odes that Keats wrote following "Ode to Psyche" as implied by Brown. There is further evidence in the structure of the poems because Keats combines two different types of lyrical in an experimental way: the odal hymn and the lyric of questioning voice that responds to the odal hymn. This combination of structures is similar to that in "Ode on a Grecian Urn", and, in both poems, the dual form creates a sort of dramatic element within the poem. The stanza forms of the poem is a combination of elements from Petrarchan sonnets and Shakespearean sonnets.[5] When it came to vowel forms, Keats incorporated pattern of alternating historically "short" and "long" vowel sounds in his ode. In particular, line 18 ("And purple-stained mouth") has the historical pattern of "short" followed by "long" followed by "short" and followed by "long". This alteration is continued in longer lines, including line 31 ("Away! away! for I will fly to thee") which has five pairs of alternations. However, other lines, such as line 3 ("Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains") rely on a pattern of five "short" vowels followed by "long" vowel and "short" vowel pairings until it ends with a "long" vowel. These are not the only combination patterns present, and there are patterns of two "short" vowels followed by a "long" vowel in other lines, including 12, 22, and 59, which are repeated twice and then followed up with two sets of "short" vowel and then "long" vowel pairs. This reliance on vowel sounds is not unique to this ode, but is common to Keats's other 1819 odes and his Eve of St. Agnes.[6] The poem also incorporates a complex reliance on assonance, a repetition of vowel sounds, in a conscious pattern as found in many of his poems. Such a reliance on assonance found in very few English poems. Within "Ode to a Nightingale", an example of this pattern can be found in line 35 ("Already with thee! tender is the night") where the "ea" of "Already" connects with the "e" of "tender" and the "i" of "with" connects with the "i" of "is". This same pattern is found again in line 41 )"I cannot see what flowers are at my feet") with the "a" of "cannot" linking with the "a" of "at" and the "ee" of "see" linking with the "ee" of "feet". This system of assonance can be found in approximately a tenth of the lines of Keats's later poetry.[7] When it came to other sound patterns, Keats relied on double or triple caesuras within approximately 6% throughout the 1819 odes. An example from "Ode to a Nightingale" can be found within line 45 ("The grass, the thicket, and the fruit-tree wild") as the pauses after the commas are a "masculine" pause. Furthermore, Keats began to reduce the amount of Latin based words and syntax that he relied on in his poetry, which in turn shortened the length of the words that dominate the poem. There is also an emphasis on words beginning with consonants, especially those that begin with "b", "p" or "v". These three consonants are relied on heavily in the first stanza, and they are used syzygially to add a musical tone within the poem.[8] In terms of poetic meter, Keats relies on spondee throughout his 1819 odes and in just over 8% of his lines within "Ode to a Nightingale", including line 12:[9] / ? / / ? ? / / ? / Cool'd a long age in the deep delv ed earth                     and line 25: ? / ? / ? / / / / / Where pals y shakes a few, sad, last, gray hairs                     To Walter Jackson Bate, the use of spondees in lines 31–34 creates a feeling of slow flight, and "in the final stanza . . . the distinctive use of scattered spondees, together with initial inversion, lend[s] an approximate phonetic suggestion of the peculiar spring and bounce of the bird in its flight."[10] Poem The poem begins suddenly, marked by use of heavy sounding syllables ("My heart aches" line 1), as it introduces the song of a hidden bird. Immediately, the narrator is overcome with such a feeling that he believes he has either been poisoned or is influenced by a drug. It is soon revealed that the source of this feeling is a nightingale's song, which the narrator empathises with[11] and has paralyzed his mind:[12] ’Tis not through envy of thy happy lot, But being too happy in thine happiness,— That thou, light-winged Dryad of the trees, In some melodious plot Of beechen green, and shadows numberless, Singest of summer in full-throated ease. (lines 5–10) The song encourages the narrator to give up his own sense of self and embrace the feelings that are evoked by the nightingale. No longer a poison, the narrator wants to experience more of the feeling and escape from reality:[13] O, for a draught of vintage! that hath been Cool’d a long age in the deep-delved earth, Tasting of Flora and the country green, * * * * * That I might drink, and leave the world unseen, And with thee fade away into the forest dim: (lines 11–13, 19–20) The narrator uses metaphorical wings to join the nightingale. It is at this moment that the poem moves into a deep, imaginative state, and the narrator cries out:[14] Away! away! for I will fly to thee, Not charioted by Bacchus and his pards, But on the viewless wings of Poesy, Though the dull brain perplexes and retards: Already with thee! (lines 31–35) The state that the narrator wants is seemingly a state of death, but it is one that is full of life. The paradox expands to encompass the night, a tender presence that allows some light to shine through:[15] tender is the night, And haply the Queen-Moon is on her throne, Cluster’d around by all her starry Fays; But here there is no light, Save what from heaven is with the breezes blown Through verdurous glooms and winding mossy ways. (lines 35–40) In the new state, the narrator's senses change. He loses his sense of sight, but his ability to smell, taste, and hear allow him to experience the new world, the new paradise that he has entered:[16]