Though the modern song is often perceived as a mere set of lyrics combined with a rhythm to create a desired atmosphere, they have historically served the purpose to convey impactful messages or morals in a fashion that can be universally comprehended. Although this component remains in current musical works, for it is the essence, or soul, of a piece, without which one could not consider a melody a song, it lacks the prevalence that it previously possessed, which is evidenced in the relatively old work The Water is Wide, a song that contains a truly puissant theme. The current variation of this tune consists of lyrics that originate from the 1600s, but were not consolidated or set to a melody preceding Cecil Sharp’s discovery of them. The …show more content…
According to the fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth verses of the work, the narrator describes, “There is a ship and it sails on the sea Loaded deep as deep can be But not as deep as the love I'm in I know not if I sink or swim.” In this excerpt, the narrator compares his love to a ship, and states that he is uncertain if he will sink or swim. This metaphor clearly portrays love’s hazardous, inconstant behavior, for it suggests that it, like a vessel, supports the narrator, though it may spontaneously capsize and descend into the ocean, which possesses the potential to severely or lethally damage him. Additionally, the narrator continued in the thirteenth, fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth verses, “Oh love is gentle, love is kind A jewel when first it's new But love grows old and waxes cold And fades away like some morning dew.” The author likens love to a jewel and morning dew in this section of the piece. These metaphors and similes provide great support for the moral of the song, as they state that, in a vein similar to a jewel, love’s appeal gradually declines, and, much like morning dew, love will eventually dissipate, existing for a brief period of time when the impeccable conditions for this fragile object’s existence may be observed. Finally, the narrator announces in the ninth, tenth, and eleventh verses of the song, “I leaned my back up against an oak Thinkin' it was a trusty tree But first it bent and then it broke.” In this fragment of the piece, the narrator recounts an experience that consisted of the destruction of a feeble tree that halved following his attempt to rest upon it. This symbol serves an indisputably crucial role in the song, for it represents love’s gradual decay, inevitable cessation, and unpredictable nature, for the tree initially warps upon supporting the narrator,
In the second stanza the poet describes the tree as thin, dry and insecure. Insecurity is a human nature that has been used to describe a
Tree Imagery in Hurston’s Novels, Their Eyes Were Watching God and Seraph on the Suwanee. Hurston uses the fruit tree as an important image in both of the texts: the blossoming pear tree for Janie and the budding mulberry tree for Arvay. Each holds a unique meaning to its counterpart. In looking at Janie’s interaction with her tree, I chose to focus on the passage on page 11, beginning with “She was stretched on her back beneath the pear tree.”.
The poem talks about the old tree and relates it to an aged man. "Or the trenched features of an
John Hollander’s poem, “By the Sound,” emulates the description Strand and Boland set forth to classify a villanelle poem. Besides following the strict structural guidelines of the villanelle, the content of “By the Sound” also follows the villanelle standard. Strand and Boland explain, “…the form refuses to tell a story. It circles around and around, refusing to go forward in any kind of linear development” (8). When “By the Sound” is examined in regards to a story, the poem’s linear development does not get beyond the setting. …” The poem starts: “Dawn rolled up slowly what the night unwound” (Hollander 1). The reader learns the time of the poem’s story is dawn. The last line of the first stanza provides place: “That was when I was living by the sound” (3). It establishes time and place in the first stanza, but like the circular motion of a villanelle, each stanza never moves beyond morning time at the sound but only conveys a little more about “dawn.” The first stanza comments on the sound of dawn with “…gulls shrieked violently…” (2). The second stanza explains the ref...
The imagery here is deep because Howe was able to relate the tree to man-made items and gives the tree its own personification. In the poem “The Game”, Marie Howe does an excellent job of describing this game that she used to play with others. They flipped chairs and made a city from blankets and boxes. They pretended to inhabit around or in objects such as a pool table, the cupboard, or the bathroom. The lights were turned off and the group pretend it was night time even though it was, and they would sleep. Also in “A Certain Light” Howe continues to be great descriptively when elaborating on her brother’s physique. Their brother was so sick he that his muscle tissue was near to depleted. In the first two stanzas she talks about how she had to give John multiple pills and emphasized the number by spelling them out with specific names of the pills. She then said that John was bones and skin and he did not have tissue to absorb the medication. The description of how they attempted to keep John awake really set in how sick he was. The would ask him question to get him to continue to talk, but he was not very alert and showed symptoms of someone on the verge of
Robert Frost is considered by many to be one of the greatest poets of the twentieth century. Frost’s work has been regarded by many as unique. Frost’s poems mainly take place in nature, and it is through nature that he uses sense appealing-vocabulary to immerse the reader into the poem. In the poem, “Hardwood Groves”, Frost uses a Hardwood Tree that is losing its leaves as a symbol of life’s vicissitudes. “Frost recognizes that before things in life are raised up, they must fall down” (Bloom 22).
In this poem, the author tells of a lost love. In order to convey his overwhelming feelings, Heaney tries to describe his emotions through something familiar to everyone. He uses the sea as a metaphor for love, and is able to carry this metaphor throughout the poem. The metaphor is constructed of both obvious and connotative diction, which connect the sea and the emotions of love.
In the poem, it seems that somebody is inside his or her dwelling place looking outside at a tree. The person is marveling at how the tree can withstand the cold weather, continuous snow, and other harsh conditions that the winter brings. Witnessed throughout the days of winter by the person in the window, the tree’s bark stays strong, however the winter snow has been able to penetrate it. The tree becomes frozen, but it is strong enough to live throughout the winter until the spring relieves its suffering. When spring finally arrives, the effects of winter can no longer harm the tree. The freezing stage is gone, and the tree can give forth new life and growth in the springtime.
The poem begins with the speaker comparing her body as being like a persimmons tree, displaying off the double meaning of the word "limbs"(1). The speaker lateral limbs (1) arms and
On the other side, “Love Poem” is very different from the previous poem. This seven stanza poem is based on a man describing the imperfections of his lover. In this, the speaker uses stylistic devices, such as alliteration and personification to impact more on reader, for example as the speaker shows “your lipstick ginning on our coat,”(17) ...
There is also a sense of acuteness as the words in this stanza are short and sharp, and the lines clash and seem to contrast greatly. " Whispering by the shore" shows that water is a symbol of continuity as it occurs in a natural cycle, but the whispering could also be the sound of the sea as it travels up the shore. The end of this section makes me feel as if he is trying to preserve something with the "river mud" and "glazing the baked clay floor. " The fourth section, which includes four stanzas of three lines, whereas the third section included four-line stanzas and the second section included two-line stanzas, shows continuity once again, as if it's portraying the water's movement. "Moyola" is once again repeated, and "music" is also present, with "its own score and consort" being musical terms and giving the effect of harmony.
“We pluck and marvel for sheer joy. And the ones still green, sighing, leave upon the boughs…” (14-16). This emphasis on nature reflects the respect and connection to the natural world the culture was trying to convey in their poetry. The colorful and illustrative descriptions of the physical world are indicative of the mindset and focus of these poems. Namely the fact that they were concerned with the world around us and the reality we experience as opposed to that of abstract concept of god or the supernatural as seen in other historical texts. This focus on nature is important because it sets the context in which the major theme of loss and separation originate from. In this poem the poet chooses to emphasize the passing of time in the choice of comparing the two seasons. Spring, in which life begins a new, and fall, in which the leaves begin to fall off and die. The poem reads “And the ones still green, sighing, leave upon the boughs- Those are the ones I hate to lose. For me, it is the autumn hills” (15-18). This juxtaposition of these two
The short phrase “till split by lightning” is critical to the poem’s overall message. Piercy acknowledges that a Bonsai tree that’s carefully
Throughout his life... was a man self-haunted, unable to escape from his own drama, unable to find any window that would not give him back the image of himself. Even the mistress of his most passionate love-verses, who must (one supposes) have been a real person, remains for him a mere abstraction of sex: a thing given. He does not see her --does not apparently want to see her; for it is not of her that he writes, but of his relation to her; not of love, but of himself loving.
In “The Tree,” the speaker talks to a tree and express thanks for its “delightful shade” (1). The speaker goes on to talk of the others who benefited from the existence of the tree and gave it something back in return, such as the birds singing, travelers praising it’s welcome shade, and nymphs making crowns from its blooms. The speaker wonders what she can do to repay the shade given her by the tree. She decides to wish something for the tree’s future. She wishes, “To future ages may’st thou stand / Untouch’d by the rash workman’s hand” (19 – 20). Ultimately, she wishes something such as “some bright hearth” (32) be made from the tree at its death.