2003B FRQ #1

Post date: Dec 03, 2013 9:3:8 PM

The following poem is taken from Modern Love, a poetic sequence by the English writer George Meredith. Read the poem carefully. Then write a well-organized essay in which you analyze how the poet conveys a view of “modern

love.”

1          By this he knew she wept with waking eyes:

            That, at his hand’s light quiver by her head,

            The strange low sobs that shook their common bed

            Were called into her with a sharp surprise,

5          And strangled mute, like little gaping snakes,

            Dreadfully venomous to him. She lay

            Stone-still, and the long darkness flowed away

            With muffled pulses. Then, as midnight makes

            Her giant heart of Memory and Tears

10        Drink the pale drug of silence, and so beat

            Sleep’s heavy measure, they from head to feet

            Were moveless, looking through their dead black years,

            By vain regret scrawled over the blank wall.

            Like sculptured effigies* they might be seen

15        Upon their marriage-tomb, the sword between;

            Each wishing for the sword that severs all.

                                                                                                                        (1862)

*The stone figures of a husband and wife carved on medieval tombs