Lit 2413 Final Exam

John Donne The Flea

" Cruel and sudden, hast thou since Purpled thy nail, in blood of innocence? Wherein could this flea guilty be, Except in that drop which it sucked from thee? Yet thou triumph'st, and say'st that thou Find'st not thy self, nor me the weaker now; 'Tis true; then learn how false, fears be: Just so much honor, when thou yield'st to me, Will waste, as this flea's death took life from thee." The Flea is a poem that is all about one man trying to get a woman to have sex with him. The woman is probably a virgin. In his attempt to persuade his would be lover the man focuses on a flea, a parasite that has sucked blood from them both. He uses a logical argument (a conceit) to try and win her over.

Alice Walker Everyday Use

"Everyday Use" is narrated from the point of view of Mama, a big-boned woman who dreams of being the thin, smart, funny mother her daughters seem to want. She waits for them in the yard, thinking of her relationship with her eldest daughter, Dee. Maggie, who is not bright and who bears severe burn scars from a house fire many years before, is even more intimidated by her glamorous sibling. Mama's daughter Maggie is the first to join her in the yard. Maggie is a quiet, sensitive, rather traditional girl who plans to get married soon. Mama and Maggie wait for Dee, the daughter who has left home and gotten an education. When Dee returns, Mama is surprised to see Dee in traditional African clothes. Dee has changed her name to Wangero and become deeply interested in her African heritage. She asks for a quilt that was made out of her grandmother's old clothes. Mama refuses to give it to her, and Dee leaves in a huff.

Emily Dickinson 254 ("'Hope' is the thing with feathers--")

"Hope" is the thing with feathers - That perches in the soul - And sings the tune without the words - And never stops - at all - And sweetest - in the Gale - is heard - And sore must be the storm - That could abash the little Bird That kept so many warm - I've heard it in the chillest land - And on the strangest Sea - Yet - never - in Extremity, It asked a crumb - of me.

Zora Neale Hurston The Gilded Six-Bits

"The Gilded Six-Bits" begins with a snapshot of Eatonville and the house where Missie May and Joe live. When we're first introduced to Missie May, she's bathing herself in the tub. She realizes it's getting late and that her husband, Joe will be home soon: "Joe gointer be heah 'fore Ah git mah clothes on if Ah don't make haste." (6) Before she can get her slippers on Joe comes home and they play fight, a ritual that takes place every Saturday. After some cute roughhousing, Joe cleans up and they sit down for a spread of southern goodies. Joe announces he wants to take Missie out for ice cream, a new place run by a rich, northern African-American man, "Mister Otis D. Slemmons, of spots and places." (35) Like a school kid with a crush, Joe can't stop talking about Slemmons. Joe and Missie go to the ice cream parlor several times and Missie happily plays trophy wife. Unfortunately, the story takes a disastrous turn when Slemmons starts chasing after her, promising money in exchange for sex. One night after getting off work early, Joe discovers his wife in bed with Slemmons and his happy home turns sour. Joe becomes cold and distant, until he realizes Missie is pregnant. Of course, the question is, who's the daddy? Not until the end do we find out and when we do, we're able to breathe a huge sigh of relief—and so can Joe. Missie is saved from further torture and guilt by having Joe's son (as opposed to Slemmons'), and he's able to move on with the help of the new addition to their family. The baby serves as a motivation to stay together, and also a symbol of hope and new beginnings, which we see when Joe goes to Orlando for some shopping: "Ah got a lil boy chile home now. Tain't a week old yet, but he kin suck a sugar tit and maybe eat one them kisses hisself." (134)

William Blake Auguries of Innocence (online)

"To see a World in a Grain of Sand And a Heaven in a Wild Flower Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand And Eternity in an hour A Robin Red breast in a Cage Puts all Heaven in a Rage" FIND SUMMARY

William Wordsworth Lines, composed a few miles above Tintern Abbey

"We stood together; and that I, so long A worshipper of Nature, hither came Unwearied in that service: rather say With warmer love—oh! with far deeper zeal Of holier love. Nor wilt thou then forget, That after many wanderings, many years Of absence, these steep woods and lofty cliffs, And this green pastoral landscape, were to me More dear, both for themselves and for thy sake!" "Tintern Abbey" is about the ways that we change over time, and the ways that we try to figure out just when and how and why we've changed. In short, it's about trying to square the person you used to be with the person you've become. So, if you've ever stopped and asked yourself when you became the person you are, or wondered how or why your memories don't measure up with the facts, this is a poem for you.

Walt Whitman Cavalry Crossing a Ford

A LINE in long array where they wind betwixt green islands, They take a serpentine course, their arms flash in the sun—hark to the musical clank, Behold the silvery river, in it the splashing horses loitering stop to drink, Behold the brown-faced men, each group, each person a picture, the negligent rest on the saddles, Some emerge on the opposite bank, others are just entering the ford—while, Scarlet and blue and snowy white, The guidon flags flutter gayly in the wind.

Jack London To Build a Fire

A guy and his dog want to make tracks to a mining camp so they can sit beside a warm fire and chow down on bacon and biscuits. There's just one little problem: they've got at least nine hours of hiking ahead of them, and it's minus seventy-five degrees Fahrenheit. takes place in the snowy world of the Yukon, where it's so cold your spit freezes before it even hits the ground. He was certain that civilization and its modern conveniences had turned everyone (and men in particular) into a bunch of wimps down south. And he felt that people needed to reconnect with their animal instincts if they wished to remain strong against the pampering forces of the modern world. When the man reaches Henderson Creek, he decides to follow it all the way to the camp. As the man continues his journey, he thinks back to a conversation he had with an older, more experienced man from Sulphur Creek (there seem to be a lot of creeks in the Yukon). He remembers the old-timer telling him that it's a really bad idea to travel alone in temperatures below minus fifty. But the man thinks the old-timer is a wimpy old coot and keeps walking. Ignoring the advice of an older and wiser mentor, eh? That tends not to work out in most stories. In desperation, he tries to kill his dog so he can cut it open and warm his hands inside its body. But without his hands, there's no way for the man to kill the dog in the first place, and his attempt to give the animal a killer bear hug fails miserably. With no options left, the man does his best Forrest Gump impression and starts running as hard as he can for the camp. But the place is still hours away, and he quickly runs out of steam. He scolds himself for acting so shamefully and decides to meet death with dignity. With his last spark of brain activity, he imagines himself alongside his camp friends, discovering his own body the next day. Then he's transported into a warm room with the old man from Sulphur Creek. He admits to the old-timer that he was wrong about traveling alone, and then finally croaks. The dog waits for him to get up out of the snow; but after it smells death on him, the animal howls into the night sky. When it's finished howling, it forgets about the man and continues along the creek toward the camp, where it knows there will be a warm fire and some tasty grub. Man's best friend indeed. Basically, the guy was an idiot who didn't listen to the old man or whimpers of the dog, and died because of it.

William Blake The Chimney Sweeper (1794)

A little black thing among the snow, Crying "weep! 'weep!" in notes of woe! "Where are thy father and 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 and dance and sing, They think they have done me no injury, And are gone to praise God and his Priest and King, Who make up a heaven of our misery."

Emily Dickson 986 ("A narrow Fellow in the Grass")

A narrow Fellow in the Grass Occasionally rides - You may have met him? Did you not His notice instant is - The Grass divides as with a Comb, A spotted Shaft is seen, And then it closes at your Feet And opens further on - He likes a Boggy Acre - A Floor too cool for Corn - But when a Boy and Barefoot I more than once at Noon Have passed I thought a Whip Lash Unbraiding in the Sun When stooping to secure it It wrinkled And was gone - Several of Nature's People I know, and they know me I feel for them a transport Of Cordiality But never met this Fellow Attended or alone Without a tighter Breathing And Zero at the Bone.

Walt Whitman A Noiseless Patient Spider

A noiseless patient spider, I mark'd where on a little promontory it stood isolated, Mark'd how to explore the vacant vast surrounding, It launch'd forth filament, filament, filament, out of itself, Ever unreeling them, ever tirelessly speeding them. And you O my soul where you stand, Surrounded, detached, in measureless oceans of space, Ceaselessly musing, venturing, throwing, seeking the spheres to connect them, Till the bridge you will need be form'd, till the ductile anchor hold, Till the gossamer thread you fling catch somewhere, O my soul.

Emily Dickinson 341 ("After great pain, a formal feeling comes--")

After great pain, a formal feeling comes - The Nerves sit ceremonious, like Tombs - The stiff Heart questions 'was it He, that bore,' And 'Yesterday, or Centuries before'? The Feet, mechanical, go round - A Wooden way Of Ground, or Air, or Ought - Regardless grown, A Quartz contentment, like a stone - This is the Hour of Lead - Remembered, if outlived, As Freezing persons, recollect the Snow - First - Chill - then Stupor - then the letting go -

The Tempest Characters

Alonso, Antonio, Ariel, Caliban, Ferdinand, Miranda, Prospero, Sebastian

Allen Ginsberg America

America I've given you all and now I'm nothing. America two dollars and twentyseven cents January 17, 1956. I can't stand my own mind. America when will we end the human war? Go **** yourself with your atom bomb. LOOK UP AND READ

Caliban

Another of Prospero's servants. Caliban, the son of the now-deceased witch Sycorax, acquainted Prospero with the island when Prospero arrived. Caliban believes that the island rightfully belongs to him and has been stolen by Prospero. His speech and behavior is sometimes coarse and brutal, as in his drunken scenes with Stephano and Trinculo (II.ii, IV.i), and sometimes eloquent and sensitive, as in his rebukes of Prospero in Act I, scene ii, and in his description of the eerie beauty of the island in Act III, scene ii (III.ii.130-138). Caliban grows more and more fervent in his boasts that he knows how to kill Prospero. He even tells Stephano that he can bring him to where Prospero is sleeping. He proposes that they kill Prospero, take his daughter, and set Stephano up as king of the island. Stephano thinks this a good plan

Adrienne Rich Aunt Jennifer's Tigers

Aunt Jennifer's tigers prance across a screen, Bright topaz denizens of a world of green. They do not fear the men beneath the tree; They pace in sleek chivalric certainty. Aunt Jennifer's finger fluttering through her wool Find even the ivory needle hard to pull. The massive weight of Uncle's wedding band Sits heavily upon Aunt Jennifer's hand. When Aunt is dead, her terrified hands will lie Still ringed with ordeals she was mastered by. The tigers in the panel that she made Will go on prancing, proud and unafraid.

Joyce Carol Oates Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?

Beautiful, self-absorbed fifteen-year-old Connie spends all her time hanging out with her friends at the mall or the local drive-in. One night, an older boy spots her there and says, "Gonna get you, baby." On Sunday, Connie decides to stay home while her family goes to a barbecue. The older boy, Arnold Friend, drives up with another boy and asks Connie to go for a ride. She likes his faded jeans and his big black boots and briefly considers leaving with him. Gradually, Connie realizes that there's something off about Arnold Friend. He appears to be wearing a wig, and he's much older than Connie's friends. He also knows too much about her, including that her parents are gone, where they are, and how long they'll be. Frightened, Connie calls out for her mother and tries to place a call. Arnold tells her that if she doesn't come out now, he's going to wait around for her family, and they're going to "get it." This finally convinces Connie to come out. It's presumed that she's going to be kidnapped and raped.

Emily Dickinson 712 ("Because I could not stop for Death--")

Because I could not stop for Death - He kindly stopped for me - The Carriage held but just Ourselves - And Immortality. We slowly drove - He knew no haste And I had put away My labor and my leisure too, For His Civility - We passed the School, where Children strove At Recess - in the Ring - We passed the Fields of Gazing Grain - We passed the Setting Sun - Or rather - He passed Us - The Dews drew quivering and Chill - For only Gossamer, my Gown - My Tippet - only Tulle - We paused before a House that seemed A Swelling of the Ground - The Roof was scarcely visible - The Cornice - in the Ground - Since then - 'tis Centuries - and yet Feels shorter than the Day I first surmised the Horses' Heads Were toward Eternity -

Wilfred Owen, Dulce et Decorum Est

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks, Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge, Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs, And towards our distant rest began to trudge. Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots, But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind; Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots Of gas-shells dropping softly behind. Gas! GAS! Quick, boys!—An ecstasy of fumbling Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time, But someone still was yelling out and stumbling And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime.— Dim through the misty panes and thick green light, As under a green sea, I saw him drowning. In all my dreams before my helpless sight, He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning. If in some smothering dreams, you too could pace Behind the wagon that we flung him in, And watch the white eyes writhing in his face, His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin; If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs, Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,— My friend, you would not tell with such high zest To children ardent for some desperate glory, The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est Pro patria mori.

Rudolfo Anaya Bless Me, Ultima

Bless Me, Ultima spans three years in the life of the protagonist, Antonio Marez. When the novel begins, he's just five years old, but in the span of a few short years, he struggles with his religion, his relationship with his friends and family, and the deaths of four people in his life. The novel end with the death of Ultima, Antonio's spiritual guide. Antonio's family invites Ultima, his grandmother, to live with them. Ultima helps him reconcile his respect for his father and his desire to cast off the traditional Mexican ways that govern a man's life. Antonio does well in school, but struggles with his religion. Though he has faith, he can't understand the need for the bureaucracy of the Catholic Church. One of Antonio's friends drowns. Ultima helps him cope with this death, but, in the end, Ultima dies, too. Antonio, at age eight, has learned many lessons about life.

E.E. Cumming's Buffalo Bill's

Buffalo Bill 's defunct who used to ride a watersmooth-silver stallion and break onetwothreefourfive pigeonsjustlikethat Jesus he was a handsome man and what i want to know is how do you like your blue-eyed boy Mister Death

Wallace Stevens The Emperor of Ice-Cream

Call the roller of big cigars, The muscular one, and bid him whip In kitchen cups concupiscent curds. Let the wenches dawdle in such dress As they are used to wear, and let the boys Bring flowers in last month's newspapers. Let be be finale of seem. The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream. Take from the dresser of deal, Lacking the three glass knobs, that sheet On which she embroidered fantails once And spread it so as to cover her face. If her horny feet protrude, they come To show how cold she is, and dumb. Let the lamp affix its beam. The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream.

Louise Erdrich I'm a Mad Dog Biting Myself for Sympathy

Characters: Narrator= careless, reckless, teens Dawn (ex girlfriend)= past Baby (Mason Joseph Andrews)= innocence future -steals a toucan from Walgreens -steals a car: grand theft auto --baby in the back => kidnapped -resisting arrest -leaves baby in the car => child endangerment

William Faulkner A Rose for Emily

Definition of Nobless Oblige. In section I, the narrator recalls the time of Emily Grierson's death and how the entire town attended her funeral in her home, which no stranger had entered for more than ten years. Didn't pay taxes, has a servant named Toby. In section II, the narrator describes a time thirty years earlier when Emily resists another official inquiry on behalf of the town leaders, when the townspeople detect a powerful odor emanating from her property. . Her father has just died, and Emily has been abandoned by the man whom the townsfolk believed Emily was to marry. In section III, the narrator describes a long illness that Emily suffers after this incident. The summer after her father's death, the town contracts workers to pave the sidewalks, and a construction company, under the direction of northerner Homer Barron, they are seen hanging out, and the town people feel like emily is forgetting about her rich history. she goes to the drug store to purchase arsenic, a powerful poison. She is required by law to reveal how she will use the arsenic. She offers no explanation, and the package arrives at her house labeled "For rats." In section IV, the narrator describes the fear that some of the townspeople have that Emily will use the poison to kill herself. The more outraged women of the town insist that the Baptist minister talk with Emily. After his visit, he never speaks of what happened and swears that he'll never go back. After the cousins' departure, Homer enters the Grierson home one evening and then is never seen again. Despite the occasional lesson she gives in china painting, her door remains closed to outsiders. In what becomes an annual ritual, Emily refuses to acknowledge the tax bill. She eventually closes up the top floor of the house. Except for the occasional glimpse of her in the window, nothing is heard from her until her death at age seventy-four. Only the servant is seen going in and out of the house. In section V, the narrator describes what happens after Emily dies. Emily's body is laid out in the parlor, and the women, town elders, and two cousins attend the service. After some time has passed, the door to a sealed upstairs room that had not been opened in forty years is broken down by the townspeople. The room is frozen in time, with the items for an upcoming wedding and a man's suit laid out. Homer Barron's body is stretched on the bed as well, in an advanced state of decay. The onlookers then notice the indentation of a head in the pillow beside Homer's body and a long strand of Emily's gray hair on the pillow.

Adrienne Rich Diving into the Wreck

First having read the book of myths, and loaded the camera, and checked the edge of the knife-blade, I put on the body-armor of black rubber the absurd flippers the grave and awkward mask. I am having to do this not like Cousteau with his assiduous team aboard the sun-flooded schooner but here alone. There is a ladder. The ladder is always there hanging innocently close to the side of the schooner. We know what it is for, we who have used it. Otherwise it is a piece of maritime floss some sundry equipment. I go down. Rung after rung and still the oxygen immerses me the blue light the clear atoms of our human air. I go down. My flippers cripple me, I crawl like an insect down the ladder and there is no one to tell me when the ocean will begin. First the air is blue and then it is bluer and then green and then black I am blacking out and yet my mask is powerful it pumps my blood with power the sea is another story the sea is not a question of power I have to learn alone to turn my body without force in the deep element. And now: it is easy to forget what I came for among so many who have always lived here swaying their crenellated fans between the reefs and besides you breathe differently down here. I came to explore the wreck. The words are purposes. The words are maps. I came to see the damage that was done and the treasures that prevail. I stroke the beam of my lamp slowly along the flank of something more permanent than fish or weed the thing I came for: the wreck and not the story of the wreck the thing itself and not the myth the drowned face always staring toward the sun the evidence of damage worn by salt and sway into this threadbare beauty the ribs of the disaster curving their assertion among the tentative haunters. This is the place. And I am here, the mermaid whose dark hair streams black, the merman in his armored body. We circle silently about the wreck we dive into the hold. I am she: I am he whose drowned face sleeps with open eyes whose breasts still bear the stress whose silver, copper, vermeil cargo lies obscurely inside barrels half-wedged and left to rot we are the half-destroyed instruments that once held to a course the water-eaten log the fouled compass We are, I am, you are by cowardice or courage the one who find our way back to this scene carrying a knife, a camera a book of myths in which our names do not appear.

Nathaniel Hawthorne The Birthmark

Georgina has a birthmark that Aylmer (her husband) can't get over. He is a scientist and ends up killing her trying to get it off. Her last words were "the best the earth could offer." Aminadab is his assistant.

Ernest Hemingway The Snows of Kilimanjaro

Give the author and title: Harry, a writer, and his wife, Helen, are stranded while on safari in Africa. A bearing burned out on their truck, and Harry is talking about the gangrene that has infected his leg when he did not apply iodine after he scratched it. As they wait for a rescue plane from Nairobi that he knows won't arrive on time, Harry spends his time drinking and insulting Helen. Harry reviews his life, realizing that he wasted his talent through procrastination and luxury from a marriage to a wealthy woman that he doesn't love.

Dylan Thomas Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay, Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Langston Hughes Dream Boogie

Good morning, daddy! Ain't you heard The boogie-woogie rumble Of a dream deferred? Listen closely: You'll hear their feet Beating out and beating out a — You think It's a happy beat? Listen to it closely: Ain't you heard something underneath like a — What did I say? Sure, I'm happy! Take it away! Hey, pop! Re-bop! Mop! Y-e-a-h!

Sandra Cisneros Woman Hollering Creek

Her father told that he loved her and would never abandon. She had no mother, and sometimes thought of how the love towards a man differs from the maternal love. She thought of this usually when Juan Pedro did not come home for a sleep. Cleofilas Cleofilas is a young woman, the protagonist of the story. She has six brothers and a father, but she has no mother, so ahe has been brought up among men. When she gets merried she leaves her father's home in Mexico and goes to her husband's in the USA. There she lives in his house, takes care after him and after their son. Cleofilas is not a very clever woman, she is not educated, but she is very good at sewing. She is sensible and romantic. What she really likes is watching telenovelas, and while watching she dreams of life like on these shows. After some time her husband began to hit her, and she finally decided to leave him and run away. Juan Pedro Juan Perdo is Cleofilas' husband. At first he seems caring and loving, but later shows who he truly is. He is very rude with his wife and even starts rising hand on her. He is an ordinary person, unable to be romantic and sensible, unlike his wife. He is not tall, and has a prominent belly from beer drinking. There have been instances of his infidelity. Felice Felice is woman who helps Cleofilas to escape. She is a strong and determined personality. She own a pichup, is independent and does what she thinks to be good for her. Cleofilas is fascinated by this woman's will and inner power. Soledad Soledad is Cleofilas' neighbour, she is a kind old woman and calls herself a widow, nut it is not known where her husband was, whether he had died or escaped from her to another woman. But she still bears him in her heart and memory. Dolores Dolores is another Cleofilas' neighbour, she also lives alone as she had lost her two sons at war and her husband, who could not bear the pain from the loss of their children. Gardening is her passion and she spends a lot of time taking care after flowers, her sunflowers are very famous in the city.

Wallace Stevens Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird

I Among twenty snowy mountains, The only moving thing Was the eye of the blackbird. II I was of three minds, Like a tree In which there are three blackbirds. III The blackbird whirled in the autumn winds. It was a small part of the pantomime. IV A man and a woman Are one. A man and a woman and a blackbird Are one. V I do not know which to prefer, The beauty of inflections Or the beauty of innuendoes, The blackbird whistling Or just after. VI Icicles filled the long window With barbaric glass. The shadow of the blackbird Crossed it, to and fro. The mood Traced in the shadow An indecipherable cause. VII O thin men of Haddam, Why do you imagine golden birds? Do you not see how the blackbird Walks around the feet Of the women about you? VIII I know noble accents And lucid, inescapable rhythms; But I know, too, That the blackbird is involved In what I know. IX When the blackbird flew out of sight, It marked the edge Of one of many circles. X At the sight of blackbirds Flying in a green light, Even the bawds of euphony Would cry out sharply. XI He rode over Connecticut In a glass coach. Once, a fear pierced him, In that he mistook The shadow of his equipage For blackbirds. XII The river is moving. The blackbird must be flying. XIII It was evening all afternoon. It was snowing And it was going to snow. The blackbird sat In the cedar-limbs.

Elizabeth Bishop The Fish

I caught a tremendous fish and held him beside the boat half out of water, with my hook fast in a corner of his mouth. He didn't fight. He hadn't fought at all. He hung a grunting weight, battered and venerable and homely. Here and there his brown skin hung in strips like ancient wallpaper, and its pattern of darker brown was like wallpaper: shapes like full-blown roses stained and lost through age. He was speckled with barnacles, fine rosettes of lime, and infested with tiny white sea-lice, and underneath two or three rags of green weed hung down. While his gills were breathing in the terrible oxygen —the frightening gills, fresh and crisp with blood, that can cut so badly— I thought of the coarse white flesh packed in like feathers, the big bones and the little bones, the dramatic reds and blacks of his shiny entrails, and the pink swim-bladder like a big peony. I looked into his eyes which were far larger than mine but shallower, and yellowed, the irises backed and packed with tarnished tinfoil seen through the lenses of old scratched isinglass. They shifted a little, but not to return my stare. —It was more like the tipping of an object toward the light. I admired his sullen face, the mechanism of his jaw, and then I saw that from his lower lip —if you could call it a lip— grim, wet, and weaponlike, hung five old pieces of fish-line, or four and a wire leader with the swivel still attached, with all their five big hooks grown firmly in his mouth. A green line, frayed at the end where he broke it, two heavier lines, and a fine black thread still crimped from the strain and snap when it broke and he got away. Like medals with their ribbons frayed and wavering, a five-haired beard of wisdom trailing from his aching jaw. I stared and stared and victory filled up the little rented boat, from the pool of bilge where oil had spread a rainbow around the rusted engine to the bailer rusted orange, the sun-cracked thwarts, the oarlocks on their strings, the gunnels—until everything was rainbow, rainbow, rainbow! And I let the fish go.

Robert Frost Acquainted with the Night

I have been one acquainted with the night. I have walked out in rain—and back in rain. I have outwalked the furthest city light. I have looked down the saddest city lane. I have passed by the watchman on his beat And dropped my eyes, unwilling to explain. I have stood still and stopped the sound of feet When far away an interrupted cry Came over houses from another street, But not to call me back or say good-bye; And further still at an unearthly height, One luminary clock against the sky Proclaimed the time was neither wrong nor right. I have been one acquainted with the night.

Emily Dickinson 465 ("I heard a Fly buzz- when I died--")

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 portions 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 -

Wallace Stevens Anecdote of the Jar

I placed a jar in Tennessee, And round it was, upon a hill. It made the slovenly wilderness Surround that hill. The wilderness rose up to it, And sprawled around, no longer wild. The jar was round upon the ground And tall and of a port in air. It took dominion everywhere. The jar was gray and bare. It did not give of bird or bush, Like nothing else in Tennessee.

Allen Ginsberg Sunflower Sutra

I walked on the banks of the tincan banana dock and sat down under the huge shade of a Southern Pacific locomotive to look at the sunset over the box house hills and cry. Jack Kerouac sat beside me on a busted rusty iron pole, companion, we thought the same thoughts of the soul, bleak and blue and sad-eyed, surrounded by the gnarled steel roots of trees of machinery. LOOK UP AND READ

William Blake London

I wander thro' each charter'd street, Near where the charter'd Thames does flow. And mark in every face I meet Marks of weakness, marks of woe. In every cry of every Man, In every Infants cry of fear, In every voice: in every ban, The mind-forg'd manacles I hear How the Chimney-sweepers cry Every blackning Church appalls, And the hapless Soldiers sigh Runs in blood down Palace walls But most thro' midnight streets I hear How the youthful Harlots curse Blasts the new-born Infants tear And blights with plagues the Marriage hearse

William Wordsworth I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud Ode: Intimations of Immortality

I wandered lonely as a cloud That floats on high o'er vales and hills, When all at once I saw a crowd, A host, of golden daffodils; Beside the lake, beneath the trees, Fluttering and dancing in the breeze. Continuous as the stars that shine And twinkle on the milky way, They stretched in never-ending line Along the margin of a bay: Ten thousand saw I at a glance, Tossing their heads in sprightly dance. The waves beside them danced; but they Out-did the sparkling waves in glee: A poet could not but be gay, In such a jocund company: I gazed—and gazed—but little thought What wealth the show to me had brought: For oft, when on my couch I lie In vacant or in pensive mood, They flash upon that inward eye Which is the bliss of solitude; And then my heart with pleasure fills, And dances with the daffodils.

Langston Hughes The Negro Speaks of Rivers

I've known rivers: I've known rivers ancient as the world and older than the flow of human blood in human veins. My soul has grown deep like the rivers. I bathed in the Euphrates when dawns were young. I built my hut near the Congo and it lulled me to sleep. I looked upon the Nile and raised the pyramids above it. I heard the singing of the Mississippi when Abe Lincoln went down to New Orleans, and I've seen its muddy bosom turn all golden in the sunset. I've known rivers: Ancient, dusky rivers. My soul has grown deep like the rivers.

Jack Kerouac Alone on a Mountaintop

In the excerpt from the book Lonesome Traveler (1960) entitled "Alone on the Mountaintop", Jack Kerouac came to the realization the solitude and peacefulness he sought after comes from within oneself and is not based off ones surrounding. (218-228) Kerouac began by explaining that after he discovered he was fed up with modern urban society, "he applied" to be "a fire lookout" in the High Cascades, and then he traveled to the west coast to begin his journey (218). (218) Kerouac noted that the "[d]r[ive] north from Seattle on Highway 99" took him from the coast through the "agricultural flats," "rural valley[s]" and "foothills" and at last reaching "[t]he mountains that r[ose] on all sides" (219). He also noted that "sleepy little towns" (219) were interchanged with "Diablo, a peaceful company settlement" (220) which was his destination. He explained that upon his arrival, he had to take "a huge lift" which led him "to the level of Diablo Lake and Diablo Dam" then he crossed Diablo Lake on a "power boat" to reach "a rocky trail" to Ross Dam (220). (218-220) Kerouac stated that he had to stay "two nights" at the forest service flats before Assistant Ranger Marty Gohlke and Andy "[t]he muleskinner[]" arrived to take him to his post on Desolation Mountain (220). He went on to explain how they took a "tug[boat]" and a "corral float" filled with supplies up Ross Lake, Andy harassed Kerouac throughout the trip, on the other hand Marty gave him advice on survival (220). He noted how disembarking in nature was dangerous but once completed, they made their way towards Kerouac's summer post. (220-222) According to the story, Kerouac lacked confidence in his new home, he described it at "miserable, damp and dirty," but meanwhile Andy started cooking and Marty helped set...

Edgar Allan Poe The Raven

Key words/phrases: "'Tis some visitor," I muttered, "tapping at my chamber door— Only this and nothing more." sorrow for the lost Lenore Nameless here for evermore.

Bob Dylan Tangled Up in Blue

LOOK UP AND LISTEN

Bob Dylan The Times They Are A-Changin'

LOOK UP AND LISTEN

Bruce Springsteen Born in the U.S.A.

LOOK UP AND LISTEN

Bruce Springsteen Tangled Up in Blue

LOOK UP AND LISTEN

T.S. Eliot The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

LOOK UP AND READ

Wallace Stevens Sunday Morning

LOOK UP AND READ

Walt Whitman Song of Myself, 1-7

LOOK UP AND READ

Adrienne Rich The School among the Ruins

LOOK UP IN BOOK

Adrienne Rich Transparencies

LOOK UP IN BOOK

Gary Snyder Riprap

Lay down these words Before your mind like rocks. placed solid, by hands In choice of place, set Before the body of the mind in space and time: Solidity of bark, leaf, or wall riprap of things: Cobble of milky way, straying planets, These poems, people, lost ponies with Dragging saddles — and rocky sure-foot trails. The worlds like an endless four-dimensional Game of Go. ants and pebbles In the thin loam, each rock a word a creek-washed stone Granite: ingrained with torment of fire and weight Crystal and sediment linked hot all change, in thoughts, As well as things.

William Blake The Lamb

Little Lamb who made thee Dost thou know who made thee Gave thee life & bid thee feed. By the stream & o'er the mead; Gave thee clothing of delight, Softest clothing wooly bright; Gave thee such a tender voice, Making all the vales rejoice! Little Lamb who made thee Dost thou know who made thee Little Lamb I'll tell thee, Little Lamb I'll tell thee! He is called by thy name, For he calls himself a Lamb: He is meek & he is mild, He became a little child: I a child & thou a lamb, We are called by his name. Little Lamb God bless thee. Little Lamb God bless thee.

Kate Chopin The Story of an Hour

Louise Mallard has heart trouble, so she must be informed carefully about her husband's death. Her sister, Josephine, tells her the news. Louise's husband's friend, Richards, learned about a railroad disaster when he was in the newspaper office and saw Louise's husband, Brently, on the list of those killed. Louise begins sobbing when Josephine tells her of Brently's death and goes upstairs to be alone in her room. She goes into her room alone and at first she is distraught, and then she starts repeating "free." She is ecstatic about her new found freedom without being oppressed by a man. "She breathed a quick prayer that life might be long. It was only yesterday that she had thought with a shudder that life might be long." However once she left her room with josephine she sees her husband (he didn't die) and then she dies of a heart attack.

Edgar Allan Poe The Cask of Amontillado

Montresor claims he has been insulted beyond repair by Fortunato, and so he seeks revenge. He decides to use Fortunato's fondness for wine against him. During the carnival season, Montresor, wearing a mask of black silk, approaches Fortunato and tells him he has Amontillado. Fortunato insists they go to Montressor's vaults. Go into vaults, the nitre covered walls make fortunato cough, montressor offers to go back. Fortunato refuses and takes wine to cure his cough instead. "a huge human foot d'or, in a field azure; the foot crushes a serpent rampant whose fangs are embedded in the heel." The motto, in Latin, is "nemo me impune lacessit," that is, "no one attacks me with impunity." Montressor says the amontillado is in a small recess in the wall, he the chains Fortunado up in it, and slowly bricked up the wall blocking him in. He concludes with the Latin meaning, "may he rest in peace."

William Shakespeare Sonnet 130 ("My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun")

My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun; Coral is far more red than her lips' red; If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun; If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head. I have seen roses damasked, red and white, But no such roses see I in her cheeks; And in some perfumes is there more delight Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks. I love to hear her speak, yet well I know That music hath a far more pleasing sound; I grant I never saw a goddess go; My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground. And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare As any she belied with false compare.

Black Elk Black Elk Speaks

NORTH: white, winter, white horses, white giant's wing, herb, death SOUTH: yellow, summer, buckskin horses, sacred hoop, flowering stick, maturity EAST: red, spring, sorrel horses, daybreak star, pipe, youth WEST: black, fall, black horses, cup of sky, bow, old age A 9-year-old boy is sick in his family's teepee and has a vision where horses talk to him and the council of grandfathers. They each give him something that will aid in helping the world. He helps the nations, and then returns to his body, and is sad because his parents don't know where he has been.

Edgar Allan Poe Annabel Lee

Narrator (persona): A man of deep sensibility who extolls a young maiden with whom he fell deeply in love. Annabel Lee: Beautiful young maiden loved by the poet. She was of noble birth, as Line 17 of Stanza 1 suggests when it says she had "highborn" relatives. Annabel Lee probably represents Poe's wife, who died at a young age. Seraphs: Members of the highest order of angels around the throne of God. According to the Bible, they each had three pairs of wings. In the poem, the seraphs are so envious of the love between the narrator and Annabel Lee that they cause Annabel's death. Relative of Annabel Lee: A "highborn kinsman" (Line 17, Stanza 1) who carries away and entombs her body. But our love it was stronger by far than the love Of those who were older than we— Of many far wiser than we— And neither the angels in Heaven above Nor the demons down under the sea And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side Of my darling—my darling—my life and my bride, In her sepulchre there by the sea— In her tomb by the sounding sea. I was a child and she was a child, In this kingdom by the sea, But we loved with a love that was more than love—

William Shakespeare Sonnet 55 ("Not marble, nor the gilded monuments")

Not marble nor the gilded monuments Of princes shall outlive this powerful rhyme, But you shall shine more bright in these contents Than unswept stone besmeared with sluttish time. When wasteful war shall statues overturn, And broils root out the work of masonry, Nor Mars his sword nor war's quick fire shall burn The living record of your memory. 'Gainst death and all-oblivious enmity Shall you pace forth; your praise shall still find room Even in the eyes of all posterity That wear this world out to the ending doom. So, till the Judgement that yourself arise, You live in this, and dwell in lovers' eyes.

Theodore Roethke Root Cellar

Nothing would sleep in that cellar, dank as a ditch, Bulbs broke out of boxes hunting for chinks in the dark, Shoots dangled and drooped, Lolling obscenely from mildewed crates, Hung down long yellow evil necks, like tropical snakes. And what a congress of stinks! Roots ripe as old bait, Pulpy stems, rank, silo-rich, Leaf-mold, manure, lime, piled against slippery planks. Nothing would give up life: Even the dirt kept breathing a small breath

Dylan Thomas Fern Hill

Now as I was young and easy under the apple boughs About the lilting house and happy as the grass was green, The night above the dingle starry, Time let me hail and climb Golden in the heydays of his eyes, And honoured among wagons I was prince of the apple towns And once below a time I lordly had the trees and leaves Trail with daisies and barley Down the rivers of the windfall light. And as I was green and carefree, famous among the barns About the happy yard and singing as the farm was home, In the sun that is young once only, Time let me play and be Golden in the mercy of his means, And green and golden I was huntsman and herdsman, the calves Sang to my horn, the foxes on the hills barked clear and cold, And the sabbath rang slowly In the pebbles of the holy streams. All the sun long it was running, it was lovely, the hay Fields high as the house, the tunes from the chimneys, it was air And playing, lovely and watery And fire green as grass. And nightly under the simple stars As I rode to sleep the owls were bearing the farm away, All the moon long I heard, blessed among stables, the nightjars Flying with the ricks, and the horses Flashing into the dark. And then to awake, and the farm, like a wanderer white With the dew, come back, the cock on his shoulder: it was all Shining, it was Adam and maiden, The sky gathered again And the sun grew round that very day. So it must have been after the birth of the simple light In the first, spinning place, the spellbound horses walking warm Out of the whinnying green stable On to the fields of praise. And honoured among foxes and pheasants by the gay house Under the new made clouds and happy as the heart was long, In the sun born over and over, I ran my heedless ways, My wishes raced through the house high hay And nothing I cared, at my sky blue trades, that time allows In all his tuneful turning so few and such morning songs Before the children green and golden Follow him out of grace, Nothing I cared, in the lamb white days, that time would take me Up to the swallow thronged loft by the shadow of my hand, In the moon that is always rising, Nor that riding to sleep I should hear him fly with the high fields And wake to the farm forever fled from the childless land. Oh as I was young and easy in the mercy of his means, Time held me green and dying Though I sang in my chains like the sea.

William Blake To Autumn

O Autumn, laden with fruit, and stained With the blood of the grape, pass not, but sit Beneath my shady roof; there thou mayst rest, And tune thy jolly voice to my fresh pipe, And all the daughters of the year shall dance! Sing now the lusty song of fruits and flowers. "The narrow bud opens her beauties to The sun, and love runs in her thrilling veins; Blossoms hang round the brows of Morning, and Flourish down the bright cheek of modest Eve, Till clust'ring Summer breaks forth into singing, And feather'd clouds strew flowers round her head. "The spirits of the air live on the smells Of fruit; and Joy, with pinions light, roves round The gardens, or sits singing in the trees." Thus sang the jolly Autumn as he sat; Then rose, girded himself, and o'er the bleak Hills fled from our sight; but left his golden load.

William Blake 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.

William Wordsworth Lucy Gray

Oft I had heard of Lucy Gray, And when I cross'd the Wild, I chanc'd to see at break of day The solitary Child. No Mate, no comrade Lucy knew; She dwelt on a wild Moor, The sweetest Thing that ever grew Beside a human door! You yet may spy the Fawn at play, The Hare upon the Green; But the sweet face of Lucy Gray Will never more be seen. "To-night will be a stormy night, You to the Town must go, And take a lantern, Child, to light Your Mother thro' the snow." "That, Father! will I gladly do; 'Tis scarcely afternoon— The Minster-clock has just struck two, And yonder is the Moon." At this the Father rais'd his hook And snapp'd a ******-band; He plied his work, and Lucy took The lantern in her hand. Not blither is the mountain roe, With many a wanton stroke Her feet disperse, the powd'ry snow That rises up like smoke. The storm came on before its time, She wander'd up and down, And many a hill did Lucy climb But never reach'd the Town. The wretched Parents all that night Went shouting far and wide; But there was neither sound nor sight To serve them for a guide. At day-break on a hill they stood That overlook'd the Moor; And thence they saw the Bridge of Wood A furlong from their door. And now they homeward turn'd, and cry'd "In Heaven we all shall meet!" When in the snow the Mother spied The print of Lucy's feet. Then downward from the steep hill's edge They track'd the footmarks small; And through the broken hawthorn-hedge, And by the long stone-wall; And then an open field they cross'd, The marks were still the same; They track'd them on, nor ever lost, And to the Bridge they came. They follow'd from the snowy bank The footmarks, one by one, Into the middle of the plank, And further there were none. Yet some maintain that to this day She is a living Child, That you may see sweet Lucy Gray Upon the lonesome Wild. O'er rough and smooth she trips along, And never looks behind; And sings a solitary song That whistles in the wind.

John Cheever The Swimmer

On a Sunday afternoon in midsummer, Neddy and Lucinda Merrill and Helen and Donald Westerhazy sit around the Westerhazys' pool, complaining about their hangovers. They are all drinking. Neddy feels young, energetic, and happy. He decides to get home by swimming across all the pools in his county. He feels like an explorer. He dives into the Westerhazys' pool, swims across, and gets out on the other side. He walks to the Grahams' pool, swims across, then has a drink. He next swims across the Hammers' pool, then several others. At the Bunkers' pool, a party is going on. Enid Bunker greets him, telling him that she's happy he could come to the party after all. He has a drink, then moves on. The Levys aren't home, but Neddy swims across their pool anyway and helps himself to a drink, feeling very contented. A storm begins, and Neddy waits it out in the Levys' gazebo. After the storm, he notices that red and yellow leaves are scattered all over the lawn. He expects to get a warm welcome at Shirley Adams's pool because Shirley had been his mistress, although he can't remember how long ago the affair had ended. Shirley tells him she won't give him any more money and that she won't give him a drink because someone is in the house. Neddy swims across the pool, but he has trouble getting out and must use the ladder. As he walks away, he smells fall flowers and sees fall constellations in the sky. Neddy starts crying for the first time since childhood, feeling cold and confused. He thinks that he has just been swimming too long and needs a drink and dry clothes. He swims weakly across a few more pools. Finally, he reaches his own house. The lights are all off, and Neddy doesn't know where everyone could be. Every door is locked, and no one answers when he knocks. He looks in the windows and sees that his house is empty.

Wallace Stevens The Snow Man

One must have a mind of winter To regard the frost and the boughs Of the pine-trees crusted with snow; And have been cold a long time To behold the junipers shagged with ice, The spruces rough in the distant glitter Of the January sun; and not to think Of any misery in the sound of the wind, In the sound of a few leaves, Which is the sound of the land Full of the same wind That is blowing in the same bare place For the listener, who listens in the snow, And, nothing himself, beholds Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.

Ariel

Prospero's spirit helper. Rescued by Prospero from a long imprisonment at the hands of the witch Sycorax, Ariel is Prospero's servant until Prospero decides to release him. He is mischievous and ubiquitous, able to traverse the length of the island in an instant and to change shapes at will. He carries out virtually every task that Prospero needs accomplished in the play.

William Shakespeare Sonnet 18 "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?"

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate: Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, And summer's lease hath all too short a date; Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines, And often is his gold complexion dimm'd; And every fair from fair sometime declines, By chance or nature's changing course untrimm'd; But thy eternal summer shall not fade, Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st; Nor shall death brag thou wander'st in his shade, When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st: So long as men can breathe or eyes can see, So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

William Wordsworth She Dwelt Among the Untrodden Ways

She dwelt among the untrodden ways Beside the springs of Dove, A Maid whom there were none to praise And very few to love: A violet by a mossy stone Half hidden from the eye! —Fair as a star, when only one Is shining in the sky. She lived unknown, and few could know When Lucy ceased to be; But she is in her grave, and, oh, The difference to me!

Robert Frost Mending Wall

Something there is that doesn't love a wall, That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it, And spills the upper boulders in the sun; And makes gaps even two can pass abreast. The work of hunters is another thing: I have come after them and made repair Where they have left not one stone on a stone, But they would have the rabbit out of hiding, To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean, No one has seen them made or heard them made, But at spring mending-time we find them there. I let my neighbour know beyond the hill; And on a day we meet to walk the line And set the wall between us once again. We keep the wall between us as we go. To each the boulders that have fallen to each. And some are loaves and some so nearly balls We have to use a spell to make them balance: "Stay where you are until our backs are turned!" We wear our fingers rough with handling them. Oh, just another kind of out-door game, One on a side. It comes to little more: There where it is we do not need the wall: He is all pine and I am apple orchard. My apple trees will never get across And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him. He only says, "Good fences make good neighbours." Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder If I could put a notion in his head: "Why do they make good neighbours? Isn't it Where there are cows? But here there are no cows. Before I built a wall I'd ask to know What I was walling in or walling out, And to whom I was like to give offence. Something there is that doesn't love a wall, That wants it down." I could say "Elves" to him, But it's not elves exactly, and I'd rather He said it for himself. I see him there Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed. He moves in darkness as it seems to me, Not of woods only and the shade of trees. He will not go behind his father's saying, And he likes having thought of it so well He says again, "Good fences make good neighbours."

William Shakespeare Sonnet 129 ("Th' expense of spirit in a waste of shame")

Th' expense of spirit in a waste of shame Is lust in action; and till action, lust Is perjured, murd'rous, bloody, full of blame, Savage, extreme, rude, cruel, not to trust, Enjoyed no sooner but despisèd straight, Past reason hunted; and, no sooner had Past reason hated as a swallowed bait On purpose laid to make the taker mad; Mad in pursuit and in possession so, Had, having, and in quest to have, extreme; A bliss in proof and proved, a very woe; Before, a joy proposed; behind, a dream. All this the world well knows; yet none knows well To shun the heaven that leads men to this hell.

William Shakespeare Sonnet 73 ("That time of year thou mayst in me behold"

That time of year thou mayst in me behold When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang Upon those boughs which shake against the cold, Bare ruin'd choirs, where late the sweet birds sang. In me thou see'st the twilight of such day As after sunset fadeth in the west, Which by and by black night doth take away, Death's second self, that seals up all in rest. In me thou see'st the glowing of such fire That on the ashes of his youth doth lie, As the death-bed whereon it must expire, Consum'd with that which it was nourish'd by. This thou perceiv'st, which makes thy love more strong, To love that well which thou must leave ere long.

Ralph Ellison from Invisible Man

The Prologue introduces the narrator with a monologue set inside the narrator's head. After having many adventures, which the reader will discover more about in the chapters to come, the narrator is resting and isolated. He uses the word "hibernation" to describe his status. The Prologue begins with the narrator announcing that he is an invisible man. But he is also a man of substance—"flesh and bone, fiber and liquids"—not a creation of books or movies. In making clear that he is not literally invisible, the narrator proceeds to discuss what his invisibility is...

Emily Dickinson 303 ("The Soul selects her own society--")

The Soul selects her own Society — Then — shuts the Door — To her divine Majority — Present no more — Unmoved — she notes the Chariots — pausing — At her low Gate — Unmoved — an Emperor be kneeling Upon her Mat — I've known her — from an ample nation — Choose One — Then — close the Valves of her attention — Like Stone — c. 1862

Ezra Pound In a Station of the Metro

The apparition of these faces in the crowd; Petals on a wet, black bough.

Robert Frost "Out, Out--"

The buzz saw snarled and rattled in the yard And made dust and dropped stove-length sticks of wood, Sweet-scented stuff when the breeze drew across it. And from there those that lifted eyes could count Five mountain ranges one behind the other Under the sunset far into Vermont. And the saw snarled and rattled, snarled and rattled, As it ran light, or had to bear a load. And nothing happened: day was all but done. Call it a day, I wish they might have said To please the boy by giving him the half hour That a boy counts so much when saved from work. His sister stood beside him in her apron To tell them 'Supper.' At the word, the saw, As if to prove saws knew what supper meant, Leaped out at the boy's hand, or seemed to leap— He must have given the hand. However it was, Neither refused the meeting. But the hand! The boy's first outcry was a rueful laugh, As he swung toward them holding up the hand Half in appeal, but half as if to keep The life from spilling. Then the boy saw all— Since he was old enough to know, big boy Doing a man's work, though a child at heart— He saw all spoiled. 'Don't let him cut my hand off— The doctor, when he comes. Don't let him, sister!' So. But the hand was gone already. The doctor put him in the dark of ether. He lay and puffed his lips out with his breath. And then—the watcher at his pulse took fright. No one believed. They listened at his heart. Little—less—nothing!—and that ended it. No more to build on there. And they, since they Were not the one dead, turned to their affairs.

Miranda

The daughter of Prospero, Miranda was brought to the island at an early age and has never seen any men other than her father and Caliban, though she dimly remembers being cared for by female servants as an infant. Because she has been sealed off from the world for so long, Miranda's perceptions of other people tend to be naïve and non-judgmental. She is compassionate, generous, and loyal to her father.

Dylan Thomas The Force that Through the Green Fuse Drives the Flower

The force that through the green fuse drives the flower Drives my green age; that blasts the roots of trees Is my destroyer. And I am dumb to tell the crooked rose My youth is bent by the same wintry fever. The force that drives the water through the rocks Drives my red blood; that dries the mouthing streams Turns mine to wax. And I am dumb to mouth unto my veins How at the mountain spring the same mouth sucks. The hand that whirls the water in the pool Stirs the quicksand; that ropes the blowing wind Hauls my shroud sail. And I am dumb to tell the hanging man How of my clay is made the hangman's lime. The lips of time leech to the fountain head; Love drips and gathers, but the fallen blood Shall calm her sores. And I am dumb to tell a weather's wind How time has ticked a heaven round the stars. And I am dumb to tell the lover's tomb How at my sheet goes the same crooked worm.

Langston Hughes Theme for English B

The instructor said, Go home and write a page tonight. And let that page come out of you— Then, it will be true. I wonder if it's that simple? I am twenty-two, colored, born in Winston-Salem. I went to school there, then Durham, then here to this college on the hill above Harlem. I am the only colored student in my class. The steps from the hill lead down into Harlem, through a park, then I cross St. Nicholas, Eighth Avenue, Seventh, and I come to the Y, the Harlem Branch Y, where I take the elevator up to my room, sit down, and write this page: It's not easy to know what is true for you or me at twenty-two, my age. But I guess I'm what I feel and see and hear, Harlem, I hear you. hear you, hear me—we two—you, me, talk on this page. (I hear New York, too.) Me—who? Well, I like to eat, sleep, drink, and be in love. I like to work, read, learn, and understand life. I like a pipe for a Christmas present, or records—Bessie, bop, or Bach. I guess being colored doesn't make me not like the same things other folks like who are other races. So will my page be colored that I write? Being me, it will not be white. But it will be a part of you, instructor. You are white— yet a part of me, as I am a part of you. That's American. Sometimes perhaps you don't want to be a part of me. Nor do I often want to be a part of you. But we are, that's true! As I learn from you, I guess you learn from me— although you're older—and white— and somewhat more free. This is my page for English B.

Stephen Crane The Open Boat

The ocean is so rough that one indelicate move will upset the dinghy and send them into the winter waters. Each man, despite not having slept for two days, works tirelessly to keep the boat afloat. The correspondent and the oiler share the work of rowing, while the cook huddles on the floor of the dinghy, bailing water. These men take their direction from the captain, who was injured during the shipwreck and sits grimly in the bow, the memory still fresh of his ship engulfed in the sea and the crew's dead faces in the water. They finally see a man on shore, they head towards it. Boat capsizes they have to make a break for the shore. On land, the correspondent drifts in and out of consciousness, but as he regains his senses, he sees a large number of people on the shore with rescue gear. He learns that the captain and cook have been saved but the oiler has died.

Lawrence Ferlinghetti A Coney Island of the Mind

The pennycandystore beyond the El is where I first fell in love with unreality Jellybeans glowed in the semi-gloom of that september afternoon A cat upon the counter moved among the licorice sticks and tootsie rolls and Oh Boy Gum Outside the leaves were falling as they died A wind had blown away the sun A girl ran in Her hair was rainy Her breasts were breathless in the little room Outside the leaves were falling and they cried Too soon! too soon!

Prospero

The play's protagonist, and father of Miranda. Twelve years before the events of the play, Prospero was the duke of Milan. His brother, Antonio, in concert with Alonso, king of Naples, usurped him, forcing him to flee in a boat with his daughter. Prospero has spent his twelve years on the island refining the magic that gives him the power he needs to punish and forgive his enemies.

Rebecca Harding Davis Life in the Iron Mills

The reader must follow the narrator down into the grimy, dirty city to meet a Welsh immigrant named Hugh Wolfe, a furnace tender at Kirby & John's iron mill. Thirty years prior, Hugh lived in what is now the narrator's house. Back then, the single house was rented out to six families, but the two cellar rooms were rented out to Hugh, Hugh's father, and their cousin, Deborah. Hugh makes korl statue of women, rich doctor said he should do something about his talant. But can't help him because if he can't help everyone then there is no point. Deborah steals the man's money, and gives it to hugh. He is found guilty by the morning, sentenced to 17 years. Commits suicide.

William Wordsworth The World Is Too Much With Us

The world is too much with us; late and soon, Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;— Little we see in Nature that is ours; We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon! This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon; The winds that will be howling at all hours, And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers; For this, for everything, we are out of tune; It moves us not. Great God! I'd rather be A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn; So might I, standing on this pleasant lea, Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn; Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea; Or hear old Triton blow his wreathèd horn.

Robert Frost The Road Not Taken

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, And sorry I could not travel both And be one traveler, long I stood And looked down one as far as I could To where it bent in the undergrowth; Then took the other, as just as fair, And having perhaps the better claim, Because it was grassy and wanted wear; Though as for that the passing there Had worn them really about the same, And both that morning equally lay In leaves no step had trodden black. Oh, I kept the first for another day! Yet knowing how way leads on to way, I doubted if I should ever come back. I shall be telling this with a sigh Somewhere ages and ages hence: Two roads diverged in a wood, and I— I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference.

William Blake 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 seize 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?

William Wordsworth The Tables Turned

Up! up! my Friend, and quit your books; Or surely you'll grow double: Up! up! my Friend, and clear your looks; Why all this toil and trouble? The sun above the mountain's head, A freshening lustre mellow Through all the long green fields has spread, His first sweet evening yellow. Books! 'tis a dull and endless strife: Come, hear the woodland linnet, How sweet his music! on my life, There's more of wisdom in it. And hark! how blithe the throstle sings! He, too, is no mean preacher: Come forth into the light of things, Let Nature be your teacher. She has a world of ready wealth, Our minds and hearts to bless— Spontaneous wisdom breathed by health, Truth breathed by cheerfulness. One impulse from a vernal wood May teach you more of man, Of moral evil and of good, Than all the sages can. Sweet is the lore which Nature brings; Our meddling intellect Mis-shapes the beauteous forms of things:— We murder to dissect. Enough of Science and of Art; Close up those barren leaves; Come forth, and bring with you a heart That watches and receives.

Langston Hughes Harlem

What happens to a dream deferred? Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun? Or fester like a sore— And then run? Does it stink like rotten meat? Or crust and sugar over— like a syrupy sweet? Maybe it just sags like a heavy load. Or does it explode?

Allen Ginsberg A Supermarket in California

What thoughts I have of you tonight, Walt Whitman, for I walked down the sidestreets under the trees with a headache self-conscious looking at the full moon. In my hungry fatigue, and shopping for images, I went into the neon fruit supermarket, dreaming of your enumerations! What peaches and what penumbras! Whole families shopping at night! Aisles full of husbands! Wives in the avocados, babies in the tomatoes!—and you, Garcia Lorca, what were you doing down by the watermelons? I saw you, Walt Whitman, childless, lonely old grubber, poking among the meats in the refrigerator and eyeing the grocery boys. I heard you asking questions of each: Who killed the pork chops? What price bananas? Are you my Angel? I wandered in and out of the brilliant stacks of cans following you, and followed in my imagination by the store detective. We strode down the open corridors together in our solitary fancy tasting artichokes, possessing every frozen delicacy, and never passing the cashier. Where are we going, Walt Whitman? The doors close in an hour. Which way does your beard point tonight? (I touch your book and dream of our odyssey in the supermarket and feel absurd.) Will we walk all night through solitary streets? The trees add shade to shade, lights out in the houses, we'll both be lonely. Will we stroll dreaming of the lost America of love past blue automobiles in driveways, home to our silent cottage? Ah, dear father, graybeard, lonely old courage-teacher, what America did you have when Charon quit poling his ferry and you got out on a smoking bank and stood watching the boat disappear on the black waters of Lethe?

William Shakespeare Sonnet 12 "When I do Count the clock that tells the time"

When I do count the clock that tells the time, And see the brave day sunk in hideous night; When I behold the violet past prime, And sable curls all silver'd o'er with white; When lofty trees I see barren of leaves Which erst from heat did canopy the herd, And summer's green all girded up in sheaves Borne on the bier with white and bristly beard, Then of thy beauty do I question make, That thou among the wastes of time must go, Since sweets and beauties do themselves forsake And die as fast as they see others grow; And nothing 'gainst Time's scythe can make defence Save breed, to brave him when he takes thee hence.

Walt Whitman When I Heard the Learn'd Astronomer

When I heard the learn'd astronomer, When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me, When I was shown the charts and diagrams, to add, divide, and measure them, When I sitting heard the astronomer where he lectured with much applause in the lecture-room, How soon unaccountable I became tired and sick, Till rising and gliding out I wander'd off by myself, In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time, Look'd up in perfect silence at the stars.

Robert Frost Birches

When I see birches bend to left and right Across the lines of straighter darker trees, I like to think some boy's been swinging them. But swinging doesn't bend them down to stay As ice-storms do. Often you must have seen them Loaded with ice a sunny winter morning After a rain. They click upon themselves As the breeze rises, and turn many-colored As the stir cracks and crazes their enamel. Soon the sun's warmth makes them shed crystal shells Shattering and avalanching on the snow-crust— Such heaps of broken glass to sweep away You'd think the inner dome of heaven had fallen. They are dragged to the withered bracken by the load, And they seem not to break; though once they are bowed So low for long, they never right themselves: You may see their trunks arching in the woods Years afterwards, trailing their leaves on the ground Like girls on hands and knees that throw their hair Before them over their heads to dry in the sun. But I was going to say when Truth broke in With all her matter-of-fact about the ice-storm I should prefer to have some boy bend them As he went out and in to fetch the cows— Some boy too far from town to learn baseball, Whose only play was what he found himself, Summer or winter, and could play alone. One by one he subdued his father's trees By riding them down over and over again Until he took the stiffness out of them, And not one but hung limp, not one was left For him to conquer. He learned all there was To learn about not launching out too soon And so not carrying the tree away Clear to the ground. He always kept his poise To the top branches, climbing carefully With the same pains you use to fill a cup Up to the brim, and even above the brim. Then he flung outward, feet first, with a swish, Kicking his way down through the air to the ground. So was I once myself a swinger of birches. And so I dream of going back to be. It's when I'm weary of considerations, And life is too much like a pathless wood Where your face burns and tickles with the cobwebs Broken across it, and one eye is weeping From a twig's having lashed across it open. I'd like to get away from earth awhile And then come back to it and begin over. May no fate willfully misunderstand me And half grant what I wish and snatch me away Not to return. Earth's the right place for love: I don't know where it's likely to go better. I'd like to go by climbing a birch tree, And climb black branches up a snow-white trunk Toward heaven, till the tree could bear no more, But dipped its top and set me down again. That would be good both going and coming back. One could do worse than be a swinger of birches.

William Blake 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 & 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, & that very night, As Tom was a-sleeping he had such a sight! That thousands of sweepers, Dick, Joe, Ned, & 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 & 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 & 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 & never want joy. And so Tom awoke; and we rose in the dark And got with our bags & our brushes to work. Though the morning was cold, Tom was happy & warm; So if all do their duty, they need not fear harm.

William Shakespeare Sonnet 29 ("When, in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes"

When, in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes, I all alone beweep my outcast state, And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries, And look upon myself and curse my fate, Wishing me like to one more rich in hope, Featured like him, like him with friends possessed, Desiring this man's art and that man's scope, With what I most enjoy contented least; Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising, Haply I think on thee, and then my state, (Like to the lark at break of day arising From sullen earth) sings hymns at heaven's gate; For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings That then I scorn to change my state with kings.

Robert Frost Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening

Whose woods these are I think I know. His house is in the village though; He will not see me stopping here To watch his woods fill up with snow. My little horse must think it queer To stop without a farmhouse near Between the woods and frozen lake The darkest evening of the year. He gives his harness bells a shake To ask if there is some mistake. The only other sound's the sweep Of easy wind and downy flake. The woods are lovely, dark and deep, But I have promises to keep, And miles to go before I sleep, And miles to go before I sleep.

Emily Dickinson 249 ("Wild Nights- Wild Nights!)

Wild nights - Wild nights! Were I with thee Wild nights should be Our luxury! Futile - the winds - To a Heart in port - Done with the Compass - Done with the Chart! Rowing in Eden - Ah - the Sea! Might I but moor - tonight - In thee!

Charlotte Perkins Gilman The Yellow Wallpaper

You better know this.... But, the narrator moves into a house that was vacant for sometime. She is suffering from nervosa, and John (her physician husband) applies the rest cure. She becomes obsessed with the wallpaper, claiming to see a woman behind the bars. Slowly goes insane and becomes a "creeping woman"

E.E. Cumming's anyone lived in a pretty how town

anyone lived in a pretty how town (with up so floating many bells down) spring summer autumn winter he sang his didn't he danced his did. Women and men(both little and small) cared for anyone not at all they sowed their isn't they reaped their same sun moon stars rain children guessed(but only a few and down they forgot as up they grew autumn winter spring summer) that noone loved him more by more when by now and tree by leaf she laughed his joy she cried his grief bird by snow and stir by still anyone's any was all to her someones married their everyones laughed their cryings and did their dance (sleep wake hope and then)they said their nevers they slept their dream stars rain sun moon (and only the snow can begin to explain how children are apt to forget to remember with up so floating many bells down) one day anyone died i guess (and noone stooped to kiss his face) busy folk buried them side by side little by little and was by was all by all and deep by deep and more by more they dream their sleep noone and anyone earth by april wish by spirit and if by yes. Women and men(both dong and ding) summer autumn winter spring reaped their sowing and went their came sun moon stars rain

Ambrose Bierce Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge

divided into three sections. In section I, Peyton Farquhar is standing on a railroad bridge, twenty feet above the water. His wrists are bound behind his back, and around his neck is a noose that is tied to a beam overhead. Two soldiers from the Northern army, a sergeant, and a captain immediately surround him, awaiting the execution. n section II, we learn that Farquhar was a successful planter, ardently devoted to the Southern cause. A northern soldier told him that one could easily set fire to the driftwood that had piled up near the owl creek bridge after the past winter's flood, and that it could set back the North's advances. Section III brings us back to the present, at the hanging. Farquhar loses consciousness as he plummets down from the side of the bridge. He breaks free and dodges the shots fired at him, he makes it home to his wife and he moves to embrace her but feels a sharp blow on the back of his neck and sees a blinding white light all about him. He was actually dead on the bridge.

E.E. Cumming's In Just--

in Just- spring when the world is mud- luscious the little lame balloonman whistles far and wee and eddieandbill come running from marbles and piracies and it's spring when the world is puddle-wonderful the queer old balloonman whistles far and wee and bettyandisbel come dancing from hop-scotch and jump-rope and it's spring and the goat-footed balloonMan whistles far and wee

William Wordsworth Nutting

—It seems a day (I speak of one from many singled out) One of those heavenly days that cannot die; When, in the eagerness of boyish hope, I left our cottage-threshold, sallying forth With a huge wallet o'er my shoulders slung, A nutting-crook in hand; and turned my steps Tow'rd some far-distant wood, a Figure quaint, Tricked out in proud disguise of cast-off weeds Which for that service had been husbanded, By exhortation of my frugal Dame— Motley accoutrement, of power to smile At thorns, and brakes, and brambles,—and, in truth, More ragged than need was! O'er pathless rocks, Through beds of matted fern, and tangled thickets, Forcing my way, I came to one dear nook Unvisited, where not a broken bough Drooped with its withered leaves, ungracious sign Of devastation; but the hazels rose Tall and erect, with tempting clusters hung, A virgin scene!—A little while I stood, Breathing with such suppression of the heart As joy delights in; and, with wise restraint Voluptuous, fearless of a rival, eyed The banquet;—or beneath the trees I sate Among the flowers, and with the flowers I played; A temper known to those, who, after long And weary expectation, have been blest With sudden happiness beyond all hope. Perhaps it was a bower beneath whose leaves The violets of five seasons re-appear And fade, unseen by any human eye; Where fairy water-breaks do murmur on For ever; and I saw the sparkling foam, And—with my cheek on one of those green stones That, fleeced with moss, under the shady trees, Lay round me, scattered like a flock of sheep— I heard the murmur, and the murmuring sound, In that sweet mood when pleasure loves to pay Tribute to ease; and, of its joy secure, The heart luxuriates with indifferent things, Wasting its kindliness on stocks and stones, And on the vacant air. Then up I rose, And dragged to earth both branch and bough, with crash And merciless ravage: and the shady nook Of hazels, and the green and mossy bower, Deformed and sullied, patiently gave up Their quiet being: and, unless I now Confound my present feelings with the past; Ere from the mutilated bower I turned Exulting, rich beyond the wealth of kings, I felt a sense of pain when I beheld The silent trees, and saw the intruding sky.— Then, dearest Maiden, move along these shades In gentleness of heart; with gentle hand Touch—for there is a spirit in the woods.