Foreign Lands

The poem Foreign Lands by Robert Louis Stevenson is the best poem in the world. The poem is not only delightful and cheery, it includes many literary devices to further the effect of the poem. To begin, the poem is a couplet and follows the rhyming pattern of AABB. The meter of the poem is typically eight syllables, however, there are some lines that extend longer than eight syllables and some that are shorter than eight syllables. Though not evident the first time one reads this poem, the word 'foreign' represents the imaginary 'fairy land' that this little boy is envisioning. Assonance is used in lines five and six to accentuate the 'o' sound by using words like; door, adorned, flowers, and before. The author includes these sounds to reinforce …show more content…
This language use creates a vivid image in the reader's head of what the river looks like. The term 'dimpling' can also make the reader think of the dimples on a child's face. This term lends itself to the dreamy and childish tone of the poem. Line ten of the poem is a figurative image in the form of a metaphor. The river is compared to being a mirror for the sky, which further develops the dreamy and childish tone of the poem. In line twelve, "With people tramping into town" is an alliteration and a literal image. The author creates a mental image for the reader and puts her into the mind of the little boy. The alliteration is to emphasize the way in which the people were heading into town. '[T]ramping' is also an onomatopoeia by describing the sound that the people are making as they walk. In the first line of the fourth stanza, assonance is present in the form of the 'I' sound in words like I, find, and higher. The 'I' sound helps develop the dreamy tone that the author has achieved. It becomes evident after reading this poem that the tree is symbolic of escape for this young child; a place where he can go to escape into his dream …show more content…
The term "grown-up river" is personification that embodies the thoughts of a child. The young child sees the estuary as a grown-up river as opposed to the little, or what he may call the child, river that he saw before. This develops the childish tone that the author uses throughout the poem. In the fourth stanza, there is an alliteration with the lines "To where the grown-up river slips [i]nto the seas among the ships". The words slips, sea, and ships make the reader pay attention to these words. This is done because there is a metaphor in these lines as well. The river can be compared to the boy. 'Slips' is defined as "escap[ing] or get[ting] loose from (a means of restraint)", according to Google. The boy wishes to escape, like the river, into a broad sea where he can sail away from the real world and into his imaginary one. "Fairy land" is symbolic of the imaginary world that the boy wants to