Poetics in British & American Verse (INTEG 330)

PDF: Norton Anthology of Poetry Versification Essay

Indo-European Language Chart

PDF: Intro to the OED

PDF: Canterbury Tales Prologue 1-42

PDF: Essay on the Meter of Chaucer (Patrick Gillespie)

PDF: Early English Poems

PDF: English Lyric Poems

Online: Hamlet

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Hawthorne - Scarlet Letter

Read Online: The Scarlet Letter

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(Test your scansion skills here)

THE WORLD is charged with the grandeur of God.

It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;

It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil

Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?

Generations have trod, have trod, have trod; 5

And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil; 

And wears man's smudge and shares man's smell: the soil

Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.

And for all this, nature is never spent;

There lives the dearest freshness deep down things; 10

And though the last lights off the black West went

Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs—

Because the Holy Ghost over the bent

World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.

(scansion help)

I caught this morning morning's minion, king-

dom of daylight's dauphin, dapple-dawn-drawn Falcon, in his riding

Of the rolling level underneath him steady air, and striding

High there, how he rung upon the rein of a wimpling wing

In his ecstasy! then off, off forth on swing, 5

As a skate's heel sweeps smooth on a bow-bend: the hurl and gliding

Rebuffed the big wind. My heart in hiding

Stirred for a bird,—the achieve of; the mastery of the thing!

 Brute beauty and valour and act, oh, air, pride, plume, here

Buckle! AND the fire that breaks from thee then, a billion 10

Times told lovelier, more dangerous, O my chevalier!

No wonder of it: shéer plód makes plough down sillion

Shine, and blue-bleak embers, ah my dear,

Fall, gall themselves, and gash gold-vermillion.

1

Thou still unravish'd bride of quietness,

Thou foster-child of silence and slow time,

Sylvan historian, who canst thus express

A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme:

What leaf-fring'd legend haunts about thy shape 5

Of deities or mortals, or of both,

In Tempe or the dales of Arcady?

What men or gods are these? What maidens loth?

What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape?

What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy? 10

2

Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard

Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on;

Not to the sensual ear, but, more endear'd,

Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone:

Fair youth, beneath the trees, thou canst not leave 15

Thy song, nor ever can those trees be bare;

Bold Lover, never, never canst thou kiss,

Though winning near the goal yet, do not grieve;

She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss,

For ever wilt thou love, and she be fair! 20

3

Ah, happy, happy boughs! that cannot shed 

Your leaves, nor ever bid the Spring adieu;

And, happy melodist, unwearied,

For ever piping songs for ever new;

More happy love! more happy, happy love! 25

For ever warm and still to be enjoy'd,

For ever panting, and for ever young;

All breathing human passion far above,

That leaves a heart high-sorrowful and cloy'd,

A burning forehead, and a parching tongue. 30

4

Who are these coming to the sacrifice? 

To what green altar, O mysterious priest,

Lead'st thou that heifer lowing at the skies,

And all her silken flanks with garlands drest?

What little town by river or sea shore, 35

Or mountain-built with peaceful citadel,

Is emptied of this folk, this pious morn?

And, little town, thy streets for evermore

Will silent be; and not a soul to tell

Why thou art desolate, can e'er return. 40

5

O Attic shape! Fair attitude! with brede 

Of marble men and maidens overwrought, 

With forest branches and the trodden weed;

Thou, silent form, dost tease us out of thought

As doth eternity: Cold Pastoral! 45

When old age shall this generation waste,

Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe

Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say'st,

"Beauty is truth, truth beauty,--that is all

Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know. 50

1

SEASON of mists and mellow fruitfulness! 

Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;

Conspiring with him how to load and bless

With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eaves run;

To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees, 5

And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;

To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells

With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,

And still more, later flowers for the bees,

Until they think warm days will never cease, 10

For Summer has o'er-brimm'd their clammy cells.

2

Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?

Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find

Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,

Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind; 15

Or on a half-reap'd furrow sound asleep,

Drowsed with the fume of poppies, while thy hook

Spares the next swath and all its twinèd flowers;

And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep

Steady thy laden head across a brook; 20

Or by a cider-press, with patient look,

Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.

3

Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?

Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,— 

While barrèd clouds bloom the soft-dying day, 25

And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;

Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn

Among the river sallows, borne aloft

Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;

And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn; 30

Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft

The redbreast whistles from a garden-croft;

And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Kubla Khan

Emily Dickinson

Safe in their Alabaster Chambers -

Untouched by Morning – And untouched by noon -

Sleep the meek members of the Resurrection,

Rafter of Satin, and Roof of Stone - 5

Grand go the Years

In the Crescent above them -

Worlds scoop their Arcs –

And Firmaments – row -

Diadems - drop – 10

And Doges – surrender –

Soundless as Dots,

On a Disc of Snow.

The Soul selects her own Society --

Then -- shuts the Door --

To her divine Majority --

Present no more --

Unmoved -- she notes the Chariots -- pausing -- 5

At her low Gate --

Unmoved -- an Emperor be kneeling

Upon her Mat --

I've known her -- from an ample nation --

Choose One -- 10

Then -- close the Valves of her attention --

Like Stone –

I felt a Funeral, in my Brain,

And Mourners to and fro

Kept treading -- treading -- till it seemed

That Sense was breaking through --

And when they all were seated, 5

A Service, like a Drum --

Kept beating -- beating -- till I thought

My Mind was going numb --

And then I heard them lift a Box

And creak across my Soul 10

With those same Boots of Lead, again,

Then Space -- began to toll,

As all the Heavens were a Bell,

And Being, but an Ear,

And I, and Silence, some strange Race 15

Wrecked, solitary, here --

And then a Plank in Reason, broke,

And I dropped down, and down --

And hit a World, at every plunge,

And Finished knowing -- then – 20