The Hand That Signed The Paper by Dylan Thomas

The hand that signed the paper felled a city;
Five sovereign fingers taxed the breath,
Doubled the globe of dead and halved a country;
These five kings did a king to death.

The mighty hand leads to a sloping shoulder,
The finger joints are cramped with chalk;
A goose's quill has put an end to murder
That put an end to talk.

The hand that signed the treaty bred a fever,
And famine grew, and locusts came;
Great is the hand that holds dominion over
Man by a scribbled name.

The five kings count the dead but do not soften
The crusted wound nor pat the brow;
A hand rules pity as a hand rules heaven;
Hands have no tears to flow.

1.     Write the five acts carried out by “the hand” and the “sovereign fingers” in the first stanza: (2)

2.     How had the hand and fingers caused the acts listed? (1)

3.     What are the “sloping shoulders” and “finger joints cramped with chalk” tell you about the hand and the fingers? (2)

4.     What had the goose’s quill done according to the third stanza? Explain in your own words as far as possible.(1)

5.     What are the repercussions of the signing of the treaty in the third stanza? (1)

6.     How does the hand show its power, according to the third stanza? (2)

7.     What are the two things that the hand is unable to or unwilling to do? What is the reason for its inability or unwillingness? (2)

8.     Techniques:

a.     This poem is a (folk ballad, a literary ballad, a sonnet, an elegy). (1)

b.     The theme of the poem is (1)

                                                    i.     Tyranny of world leaders and its effect on the rest of the world

                                                   ii.     war

                                                  iii.     death

                                                 iv.     hands and fingers

9.     The poem has a (regular/ irregular) rhyming scheme.(1)

10.  Use of a part of something to imply the whole is a technique used by the poet throughout the poem. This technique is called (synecdoche, metaphor, alliteration, simile) 

Metonym: the hired swards were used to guard the city against its enemies. The pens of the state sang the praise of the king. 

Synecdoche:  The hand that rocked the cradle ruled the world. The head of the household

maggie and milly and molly and may - by e. e. cummings (1894 - 1962)

maggie and milly and molly and may

went down to the beach(to play one day)

and maggie discovered a shell that sang
so sweetly she couldn't remember her troubles,and

milly befriended a stranded star
whose rays five languid fingers were;

and molly was chased by a horrible thing
which raced sideways while blowing bubbles:and

may came home with a smooth round stone
as small as a world and as large as alone.

For whatever we lose(like a you or a me)
it's always ourselves we find in the sea

"Edward Estlin Cummings is known for his radical experimentation with form, punctuation, spelling, and syntax; he abandoned traditional techniques and structures to create a new, highly idiosyncratic means of poetic expression."

The four young women, maggie, milly, molly and may are in the same place – on the beach. There, they encounter different things. Maggie comes across a shell. A shell is something small, common and inexpensive. Not many people would be able to appreciate its special beauty, especially if their lives are full of trouble. However, Maggie appreciates  the shell’s uniqueness: it can sing. And listening to that song gives her pleasure and diverts her mind from her trouble. Her reaction to the music created by the shell tells us that Maggie is someone who has a sensitive soul who responds to music positively. Similarly, millie discovers a stranded starfish which reminds her of a star that fallen down to earth. The starfish does not belong on the beach – it would die should it remain there. So as an act friendship Millie would have returned the starfish to the sea. Millie sees the importance of something as small as a stranded starfish. This tells us that she is someone who loves every living thing. Molly on the other hand is frightened by nature. This tells us that she is not familiar with the natural world like her friends, Maggie and milly. Lastly, may finds a small stone on the beach. It is like a miniature Earth – because it has come from Earth and it contains parts of Earth  May identifies the connections between things in nature. However, the stone has no friends. This signals lack of friendship in may’s life. All in all, what the girls find noteworthy tells us more about them .     

Strange fits of passion have I known - William Wordsworth

 

Strange fits of passion have I known[M1] ,
And I will dare to tell,
But in the lover's ear alone,
What once to me befel[M2] .

When she I loved looked every day
Fresh as a rose in June[M3] ,[M4] 
I to her cottage bent my way,
Beneath an evening moon.[M5] 

Upon the moon I fixed my eye[M6] ,
All over the wide lea;
With quickening pace my horse drew nigh
Those paths so dear to me.

And now we reached the orchard-plot,
And, as we climbed the hill,
The sinking moon[M7]  to Lucy's cot
Came near, and nearer [M8] still.

In one of those sweet dreams I slept,
Kind Nature's[M9]  gentlest boon!
And, all the while, my eyes I kept
On the descending moon.

My horse moved on; hoof after hoof[M10] 
He raised, and never stopped:
When down behind the cottage roof
At once, the bright moon dropped[M11] .

What fond and wayward thoughts will slide
Into a Lover's head!
“O mercy!” to myself I cried,
“If Lucy should be dead!”[M12] 

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 [M1]Inversion – to highlight the phrase “strange fits of passion”

 [M2]Inversion  - in order to maintain the rhyming scheme

 [M3]Simile “she” and “rose in June” are compared

 [M4]Runon lines/ enjambment

 [M5]Visual image

 [M6]Inversion

 [M7] A motif – beauty, gentleness – hints that the romance may not end in marriage

 [M8]Repetition – indicates the poet is moving closer to Lucy’s cottage

 [M9]Personification of Nature

 [M10]Repetition

 [M11]Visual image

 [M12]Direct quotations and exclamations – to show the poet’s excitement

She dwelt among the untrodden ways - William Wordsworth

 

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!

1.     What does the poet mean when he says “She dwelt among the untodden ways”? 

2.     What were the maid’s problems?

3.     What is the metaphor the poet use to describe the girl? 

4.     Do you think it is appropriate? 

5.     What is being described as “fair as a star? 

6.     How do the majority of people respond to what they called a ”fair ” as a star”?

Three years she grew in sun and shower (The Education of Nature) - by William Wordsworth

 

Three years she grew in sun and shower,
Then Nature said, “A lovelier flower
On earth was never sown;
This Child I to myself will take,
She shall be mine, and I will make
A Lady of my own.

1.     How old was Lucy at the time of her death?

2.     Why had nature decided to make Lucy a lady of her own?

“Myself will to my darling be
Both law and impulse, and with me
The Girl, in rock and plain,
In earth and heaven, in glade and bower,
Shall feel an overseeing power
To kindle or restrain.

3.     What was Nature going to be to Lucy? Explain.

4.     What is Lucy going to discover in the company of Nature?

“She shall be sportive as the fawn
That wild with glee across the lawn
Or up the mountain springs;
And hers shall be the breathing balm,
And hers the silence and the calm
Of mute insensate things.

5.     Once Lucy had become one of Nature’s ladies, how would she spend her time?

6.     Name two things Nature was going to give Lucy.

7.     What are “mute insensate things”?

“The floating clouds their state shall lend
To her; for her the willow bend,
Nor shall she fail to see
Even in the motions of the Storm
Grace that shall mould the Maiden's form
By silent sympathy.

8.     What would the clouds, willow and storm do for Lucy?

“The stars of midnight shall be dear
To her; and she shall lean her ear
In many a secret place
Where rivulets dance their wayward round,
And beauty born of murmuring sound
Shall pass into her face.

9.     What does the poet mean by “dear” in this stanza?

10.  Name a place from which Lucy would learn nature’s secrets.

11.  Name a source of her beauty.

“And vital feelings of delight
Shall rear her form to stately height,
Her virgin bosom swell,
Such thoughts to Lucy I will give
While she and I together live
Here in this happy dell.”

12.  What would elevate Lucy to “stately height” and swell her bosom?

Thus Nature spake—the work was done—
How soon my Lucy's race was run!
She died and left to me
This heath, this calm and quiet scene,
The memory of what has been,
And never more will be.

13.  What does the poet mean by the line “How soon my Lucy’s race was run”

14.  How do you think the poetic persona feel about Lucy’s passing?

I’m Nobody[M1] - by Emily Dickinson

 

I’m Nobody! Who are you?

Are you Nobody too?

Then there’s a pair of us[M2] !

Don’t tell[M3] ! They’ll banish us, you know!

 

How dreary to be Somebody!

How public – like a Frog –

To tell your name the livelong June

To an admiring bog! 

 

1.     How do you think the speaker feels about fame?

2.     Do you agree with the speaker?

3.     What does “Nobody” mean in this poem?

4.     What does “Somebody” mean?

5.     Who are “they” in line 4?

6.     Why would they banish the speaker?

7.     The simile in the second stanza compares a celebrity to a frog. How could a frog and a public person be similar? Is this a flattering comparison?

8.     In the metaphor in the last line, admirers of famous people are compared to creatures in a bog that admires a croaking frog. How do you think the poet feels about people who idolize celebrities? 

9.     Whom do you think the speaker is speaking to? 

10.  What details in the poet’s biography might explain her feelings about fame?   

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 [M1]The poet is questioning human values – wealth, fame, good looks, intelligence …

 [M2]Tells you how lonely and uncomfortable this person had felt being Nobody surrounded by so many Sombodys

 [M3]Nobody has live hiding her true identity

I Like to See It Leap the Miles - by Emily Dickinson

 

I like to see it leap the Miles –

And lick the Valleys up - 

And stop to feed itself at Tanks - 

And then - prodigious step

 

Around a Pile of Mountains - 

And supercilious peer

In Shanties - by the sides of Roads - 

And then a Quarry pare

 

To fit its sides

And crawl between

Complaining all the while

In horrid - hooting stanza - 

Then chase itself down Hill - 

 

And neigh like Boanerges - 

Then - prompter than a Star

Stop - docile and omnipotent

At its own stable door – 

 

Extended metaphor

A metaphor is an imaginative comparison between two things that are not basically alike at all – Madhushini is like a rose. A metaphor makes a comparison directly without using word like “like” or “as”. We use these imaginative comparisons to bring our ideas alive. Metaphors help us to see our subject in a new way. For example, when you read that a person has a heart of stone, you do not think that the person’s hear is made of rock. Instead, you use what you already know or feel about stones to realize how cold, hard, and uncaring the person is.

An extended metaphor is a metaphor that is developed, or extended, through several lines of writing or even throughout an entire poem. In “I Like to See It Leap the Miles” Dickinson uses an extended metaphor to compare a train to a horse throughout the whole poem.

1.     In the poem Dickinson never says directly what she is describing or what she is comparing that thing to. What clues in the poem tell you that she is writing about a train and comparing it to a horse?

2.     List all the adjectives Dickinson uses to describe the train. Think about these adjectives as well as the opening line of the poem. How do you think Dickinson feels about the train?