Set 2:poetry Term Examples

Front 1

anapest

Back 1

The AsSYRian came DOWN like a WOLF on the FOLD

The Destruction of Sennacherib by Lord Byron

Front 2

caesura

Back 2

Know then thyself ......, presume not God to scan;
The proper study of Mankind ..... is Man.

An Essay on Man
by
Alexander Pope

Front 3

dactyl

Back 3

HALF a league, HALF a league,

The Charge of the Light Brigade
by Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Front 4

diction

Back 4

Words strain,
Crack and sometimes break, under the burden,
Under the tension, slip, slide, perish,
Decay with imprecision, will not stay in place,
Will not stay still.

"Burnt Norton" by T.S. Eliot

Front 5

elegy

Back 5

Begin then, Sisters of the sacred well
That from beneath the seat of Jove doth spring,
Begin, and somewhat loudly sweep the string.
Hence with denial vain and coy excuse:
So may some gentle Muse
With lucky words favour my destined urn;
And as he passes turn
And bid fair peace be to my sable shroud.

Lycidas by John Milton

Front 6

elision

Back 6

Whiles crooning O'ER an auld Scots sonnet,
Whiles GLOW'RING round WI prudent cares,

Tam O' Shanter by Robert Burns

Front 7

enjambment

Back 7

I think that I shall never see
A poem lovely as a tree.

A tree whose hungry mouth is prest
Against the sweet earth's flowing breast;

Trees by Joyce Kilmer

Front 8

epigram

Back 8

He that fears death, or mourns it, in the just,
Shows in the resurrection little trust.

Ben Johnson

Front 9

falling meter

Back 9

Just for a handful of silver he left us
Just for a riband to stick in his coat

The Lost Leader by Robert Browning

Front 10

iamb

Back 10

I DREAMED there WOULD be SPRING no MORE

In Memoriam by Lord Tennyson

Front 11

meter

Back 11

BY the SHORES of GIT chee GUMee,

The Song of Hiawatha by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Front 12

metonymy

Back 12

Norway himself with terrible numbers

Macbeth by Shakespeare

Front 13

octave

Back 13

I can hear the neighbors
They're arguin' again
And there hasn't been peace on our street
Since who knows when
I don't mean to listen in
But the shoutin' is so loud
I turn up the radio to drown it out
And silently I say a little prayer

But For The Grace Of God by Keith Urban

Front 14

open form

Back 14

Not easy to state the change you made.
If I'm alive now, then I was dead,
Though, like a stone, unbothered by it,
Staying put according to habit.
You didn't just tow me an inch, no--
Nor leave me to set my small bald eye
Skyward again, without hope, of course,
Of apprehending blueness, or stars.

Sylvia Plath - Love Letter

Front 15

rising meter

Back 15

A milk-white Hind, immortal and unchang'd,
Fed on the lawns, and in the forest rang'd;
Without unspotted, innocent within,
She fear'd no danger, for she knew no sin.
Yet had she oft been chas'd with horns and bounds
And Scythian shafts; and many winged wounds
Aim'd at her heart; was often forc'd to fly,
And doom'd to death, tho' fated not to die.

The Hind and the Panther - John Dryden

Front 16

sestet

Back 16

Then with the knowledge of death as walking one side of me,
And the thought of death close-walking the other side of me,
And I in the middle as with companions, and as holding the hands of companions,
I fled forth to the hiding receiving night that talks not,
Down to the shores of the water, the path by the swamp in the dimness,
To the solemn shadowy cedars and ghostly pines so still.

When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd by Walt Whitman

Front 17

sestina

Back 17

1 Hearing of harvests rotting in the valleys,
2 Seeing at end of street the barren mountains,
3 Round corners coming suddenly on water,
4 Knowing them shipwrecked who were launched for islands,
5 We honour founders of these starving cities
6 Whose honour is the image of our sorrow,

7 Which cannot see its likeness in their sorrow
8 That brought them desperate to the brink of valleys;
9 Dreaming of evening walks through learned cities
10 They reined their violent horses on the mountains,
11 Those fields like ships to castaways on islands,
12 Visions of green to them who craved for water.

13 They built by rivers and at night the water
14 Running past windows comforted their sorrow;
15 Each in his little bed conceived of islands
16 Where every day was dancing in the valleys
17 And all the green trees blossomed on the mountains
18 Where love was innocent, being far from cities.

19 But dawn came back and they were still in cities;
20 No marvellous creature rose up from the water;
21 There was still gol

Front 18

spondee

Back 18

When the BLOOD CREEPS and the NERVES PRICK

Gerard Manley Hopkins

Front 19

synecdoche

Back 19

Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears.

Julius Caesar by Shakespeare

Front 20

syntax

Back 20

When I would muse in boyhood
The wild green woods among
And nurse resolves and fancies
Because the world was young,

A.E.Housman