Precision with Poetic Language
“Must dulness turn me to a clod?”
How does this diction reveal the speaker’s fear?
What is fear of mental and spiritual decline?
“Yet have they left me, Thou art still my God.”
Why is this line placed at the end of the stanza?
What is faith as the speaker’s final priority?
“Such was the season when the flower bloomed.”
What does the flower symbolize?
What is hope appearing in hardship?
“Yet have they left me, Thou art still my God.”
What tone is revealed here?
What is resigned yet faithful?
“If I please Him, I write fine and witty.”
What tension is revealed in this line?
What is faith versus artistic ambition?
“cotton, scarce as any southern snow”
What does this image suggest about conditions?
What is extreme scarcity and hardship?
“That, while I struggle to be coldly free, / I feel my heart with wildest throbbings beat.”
How does enjambment shape meaning?
What is emotion spilling past restraint?
“The harbingers are come… White is their colour.”
What do the harbingers symbolize?
What is approaching death or aging?
“YOU tell me, fair one, that you ne’er can love,”
What attitude toward the listener is revealed?
What is restrained bitterness?
“Beauty so sudden for that time of year.”
Why does the poet leave this moment unexplained?
What is ambiguity that deepens meaning?
“I feel my heart with wildest throbbings beat.”
What tone is revealed through this diction?
What is emotional conflict?
“Must they have my brain? must they dispark / Those sparkling notions…”
What effect do these repeated questions create?
What is urgency and anxiety?
“While softest rapture lighten’d from thine eye.”
What abstract idea is reinforced?
What is love breaking through restraint?
“I pass not, I, what of the rest become,”
What value does the speaker express?
What is spiritual fulfillment over worldly loss?
“Yet pride must save me from a dastard love,”
How does this line complicate the poem’s message?
What is desire denied for self-respect?
“Thou art still my God.”
What does this diction suggest about priorities?
What is reverence over intellect?
“Old folks were startled, and it soon assumed / Significance.”
What structural shift occurs here?
What is a shift from description to meaning?
“dead birds were found / In wells a hundred feet below the ground—”
What larger condition does this image represent?
What is environmental and spiritual desolation?
“Such was the season when the flower bloomed.”
What tone is created through contrast?
What is awe mixed with unease?
“Grant me thy philosophic friendship still—”
Why is friendship offered instead of love?
What is emotional compromise for protection?
“Beauty so sudden for that time of year.”
How does this word choice shape meaning?
What is unexpected hope?
“Grant me thy philosophic friendship still—”
How does this ending reinforce control?
What is emotional restraint over vulnerability?
“Even all my heart, and what is lodged there:”
What does the heart symbolize?
What is true devotion?
“Yet pride must save me from a dastard love,”
What inner conflict does this tone reveal?
What is desire versus self-respect?
Across all three poems
What shared idea connects restraint, loss, and belief?
What is endurance through faith or control rather than resolution?