The Language of Poetry - Kitabook12.kitaboo.com/k12/ebookpdf/english02/chapter4.pdf · The Language of Poetry ... Beauty is seen In the sunlight, The trees, the birds, Corn growing

The Languageof Poetry

40110_LAC2GEN_10_Explorations_An_Anthology_of_Literature_Volume_B.indb 8140110_LAC2GEN_10_Explorations_An_Anthology_of_Literature_Volume_B.indb 81 5/13/2008 10:46:10 AM5/13/2008 10:46:10 AM

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82

Nothing Gold Can StayRobert Frost

Nature’s first green is gold,Her hardest hue to hold.Her early leaf’s a flower;But only so an hour.Then leaf subsides to leaf.So Eden sank to grief,So dawn goes down to day.Nothing gold can stay.

hue: color; certain shade of a colorsubsides: falls; settles downwardEden: the biblical Garden of Eden; paradise



83

A Poison TreeWilliam Blake

I was angry with my friend:I told my wrath, my wrath did end.I was angry with my foe:I told it not, my wrath did grow.

And I water’d it in fears,Night and morning with my tears:And I sunned it with smiles,And with soft deceitful wiles.

And it grew both day and night,Till it bore an apple bright;And my foe beheld it shine,And he knew that it was mine,

And into my garden stoleWhen the night had veil’d the pole;In the morning glad I seeMy foe outstretch’d beneath the tree.

deceitful: dishonest; misleadingwiles: tricks intended to mislead or deceivebeheld: sawveil’d: covered



84

BeautyE-Yeh-Shure’

Beauty is seen In the sunlight,The trees, the birds,Corn growing and people workingOr dancing for their harvest.

Beauty is heard In the night,Wind sighing, rain falling,Or a singer chantingAnything in earnest.

Beauty is in yourself.Good deeds, happy thoughtsThat repeat themselvesIn your dreams,In your work,And even in your rest.

in earnest: seriously and sincerely intended



85

BarterSara Teasdale

Life has loveliness to sell, All beautiful and splendid things,Blue waves whitened on a cliff, Soaring fire that sways and sings,And children’s faces looking upHolding wonder like a cup.

Life has loveliness to sell, Music like a curve of gold,Scent of pine trees in the rain, Eyes that love you, arms that hold,And for your spirit’s still delight,Holy thoughts that star the night.

Spend all you have for loveliness, Buy it and never count the cost;For one white singing hour of peace Count many a year of strife well lost,And for a breath of ecstasyGive all you have been, or could be.

strife: struggle; hard effort; conflictecstasy: intense emotion; overwhelming joy



86

“All the world’s a stage”from As You Like It, Act 2: Scene 7

William Shakespeare

All the world’s a stage,And all the men and women merely players;They have their exits and their entrances,And one man in his time plays many parts,His acts being seven ages. At first the infant,Mewling and puking in the nurse’s arms.Then the whining schoolboy, with his satchelAnd shining morning face, creeping like snailUnwillingly to school. And then the lover,Sighing like furnace, with a woeful balladMade to his mistress’s eyebrow. Then a soldier,Full of strange oaths, and bearded like the pard,Jealous in honor, sudden, and quick in quarrel,Seeking the bubble reputationEven in the cannon’s mouth. And then the justice,In fair round belly with good capon lin’d,With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,Full of wise saws and modern instances;And so he plays his part. The sixth age shiftsInto the lean and slipper’d pantaloon,

mewling: crying like a catsatchel: a book bagwoeful: sad; full of griefballad: a songpard: a leopardcapon: a neutered male chicken pantaloon: pants



87

With spectacles on nose, and pouch on side,His youthful hose, well sav’d, a world too wideFor his shrunk shank, and his big manly voice,Turning again toward childish treble, pipesAnd whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,That ends this strange eventful history,Is second childishness, and mere oblivion,Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.

shank: lower legtreble: a high-sounding voiceoblivion: a state of forgetfulness and lack of awarenesssans: without



88

The Wind Began to Rock the Grass

The Wind began to rock the GrassWith threatening Tunes and low—He threw a Menace at the Earth—A Menace at the Sky.

The Leaves unhooked themselves from Trees—And started all abroadThe Dust did scoop itself like HandsAnd threw away the Road.

The Wagons quickened on the StreetsThe Thunder hurried slow—The Lightning showed a Yellow BeakAnd then a livid Claw.

The Birds put up the Bars to Nests—The Cattle fled to Barns—There came one drop of Giant RainAnd then as if the Hands

That held the Dams had parted holdThe Waters Wrecked the SkyBut overlooked my Father’s House—Just quartering a Tree—

Three PoemsEmily Dickinson

menace: a threatlivid: very pale; very angryquartering: dividing into four pieces



89

I’ll Tell You How the Sun Rose

I’ll tell you how the Sun rose—A Ribbon at a time—The Steeples swam in Amethyst—The news, like Squirrels, ran—

The Hills untied their Bonnets—The Bobolinks—begun—Then I said softly to myself—“That must have been the Sun!”

But how he set—I know not—There seemed a purple stileThat little Yellow boys and girlsWere climbing all the while—

Till when they reached the other side,A Dominie in Gray—Put gently up the evening Bars,And led the flock away—

amethyst: a purple gembobolinks: a kind of birdstile: steps that span across a wall or fenceDominie: a clergyman; for example, a priest



90

There Is No Frigate Like a Book

There is no Frigate like a BookTo take us Lands awayNor any Coursers like a PageOf prancing Poetry—This Traverse may the poorest takeWithout oppress of Toll—How frugal is the ChariotThat bears the Human soul.

frigate: boat or shipcoursers: fast horsestraverse: a route; a way acrossoppress: a burdenfrugal: thrifty; inexpensive



91

Harlem [2]Langston Hughes

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?

deferred: put off; postponedfester: to make pus; to rot



92

Hold Fast Your DreamsLouise Driscoll

Hold fast your dreams!Within your heartKeep one still, secret spotWhere dreams may go,And sheltered so,May thrive and grow—Where doubt and fear are not.Oh, keep a place apartWithin your heart,For little dreams to go.



93

Index of Authors and Titles

“All the world’s a stage,” 86Bambara, Toni Cade, 59“Barter,” 85“Beauty,” 84Blake, William, 83“Boy Flying,” 69“Casabianca,” 2“Casey at the Bat,” 9“Charles,” 24Cormier, Robert, 46“Courage That My Mother Had, The,” 80“Cremation of Sam McGee, The,” 12de la Mare, Walter, 7Dickinson, Emily, 88, 89, 90Driscoll, Louise, 92E-Yeh-Shure’, 84Frost, Robert, 82“Gift of the Magi, The,” 29“Harlem [2],” 91Hemans, Felicia, 2Henry, O., 29“Highwayman, The,” 17“Hold Fast Your Dreams,” 92Hughes, Langston, 91“I Have Ten Legs,” 68

“I’ll Tell You How the Sun Rose,” 89“Inchcape Rock, The,” 4Jackson, Shirley, 24Jen, Gish, 71“Listeners, The,” 7Maupassant, Guy de, 36Millay, Edna St. Vincent, 80“My Father Is a Simple Man,” 57“Necklace, The,” 36Norris, Leslie, 69“Nothing Gold Can Stay,” 82Noyes, Alfred, 17“Poison Tree, A,” 83“President Cleveland, Where Are You?” 46“Raymond’s Run,” 59Salinas, Luis Omar, 57Service, Robert, 12Shakespeare, William, 86Southey, Robert, 4Swir, Anna, 68Teasdale, Sara, 85Thayer, Ernest Lawrence, 9“There Is No Frigate Like a Book,” 90“White Umbrella, The,” 71“Wind Began to Rock the Grass, The,” 88



94

Acknowledgments

“The Listeners” by Walter de la Mare. The Literary Trustees of Walter de la Mare and the Society of Authors as their representative.

“Charles” by Shirley Jackson from THE LOTTERY AND OTHER STORIES by Shirley Jackson. Copyright © 1948, 1949 by Shirley Jackson. Copyright renewed 1976, 1977 by Laurence Hyman, Barry Hyman, Mrs. Sarah Webster, and Mrs. Joanne Schnurer. Reprinted by permission of Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, LLC.

“President Cleveland, Where Are You?” by Robert Cormier from EIGHT PLUS ONE STORIES by Robert Cormier, copyright © 1965, 1966, 1967, 1968, 1969, 1971, 1973, 1975, 1980 renewed 1992, 1993 by Robert Cormier. Used by permission of Random House Children’s Books, a division of Random House, Inc.

“My Father Is a Simple Man” is reprinted with permission from the publisher of THE SADNESS OF DAYS by Luis Omar Salinas. © 1982 Arte Público Press-University of Houston.

“Raymond’s Run” by Toni Cade Bambara, copyright © 1971 by Toni Cade Bambara, from GORILLA, MY LOVE by Toni Cade Bambara. Reprinted by permission of Random House, Inc.

“I Have Ten Legs” by Anna Swir (translated by Czeslaw Milosz and Leonard Nathan). Copyright by Czeslaw Milosz. Reprinted by permission Leonard Nathan and on behalf of Mr. Milosz of Sterling Lord Literistic, Inc.

“Boy Flying” by Leslie Norris from NORRIS’S ARK, Wells College Press, Aurora, N.Y.

“The White Umbrella.” Copyright © 1984 by Gish Jen. First published in The Yale Review. From the collection WHO’S IRISH? by Gish Jen published in 1999 by Alfred A. Knopf. Reprinted by permission of the author.

“The Courage That My Mother Had” by Edna St. Vincent Millay. Copyright © 1954, 1982 by Norma Millay Ellis. Used by permission of Elizabeth Barnett, Literary Executor, The Millay Society.

“Nothing Gold Can Stay” from THE POETRY OF ROBERT FROST edited by Edward Connery Lathem. Copyright 1923, 1969 by Henry Holt and Company. Copyright 1951 by Robert Frost. Reprinted by permission of Henry Holt and Company, LLC.

“Beauty” by E-Yeh-Shure’ from I AM A PUEBLO INDIAN GIRL by E-Yeh-Shure’. Copyright © 1936 by William Morrow & Company, Inc. Renewed 1967 by Louise Abeita Chiwiwi. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc.



95

“Harlem (2)” from THE COLLECTED POEMS OF LANGSTON HUGHES by Langston Hughes, edited by Arnold Rampersad with David Roessel, Associate Editor, copyright © 1994 by the Estate of Langston Hughes. Used by permission of Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Random House, Inc.

While every care has been taken to trace and acknowledge copyright, the editors tender their apologies for any accidental infringement when copyright has proven untraceable. They would be pleased to include the appropriate acknowledgment in any subsequent edition of this publication.



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The Language of Poetry - Kitabook12.kitaboo.com/k12/ebookpdf/english02/chapter4.pdf · The Language of Poetry ... Beauty is seen In the sunlight, The trees, the birds, Corn growing