8 Matching Annotations
  1. Apr 2016
    1. And the big belt slewed to a standstill, straw Hanging undelivered in the jaws.

      There is no noticeable rhyme scheme for this poem, but these two lines and the very last two lines both rhyme, but I don't know if this is for a reason or it is just a coincidence.

  2. Jan 2016
    1. !

      Nearly every single line ends in an exclamation point or has multiple embedded within the line. This really makes it feel like he is trying to spread the word of G-d, but instead he is the G-d like figure.

    1. Toward heaven

      Heaven is mentioned twice in this poem and from the rest of the poem it may be trying to show that this action, this moment in time of playing with the birch trees and seeing the beauty that comes with them is the closest thing to perfection that the poet has ever come to.

    1. And on that cheek, and o’er that brow,    So soft, so calm, yet eloquent, The smiles that win, the tints that glow,    But tell of days in goodness spent,

      I like the multitude of commas here forcing the reader to take breaks after every description of a feature. To me it made me read it in a softer tone just as the woman's face is described.

    1. bosom-friend

      Throughout the poem there are pairings like this, usually combining to adjectives to further emphasize something. Summer has o'er-brimm'd their clammy cells, Thy hair soft-lifted. Maybe

  3. Dec 2015
    1. sweet-fowl, song-fowl,

      Throughout this sonnet we see a structure like this where he repeats one word but uses another to describe it. We see this with "bone-house, mean house" and "own nest, wild nest" I think this is meant to really show the importance of the words nest, house, and fowl

  4. Nov 2015
    1. isolated

      Walt Whitman throughout the poem uses solemn words such us "isolated", but also "noiseless", "vacant", and "tirelessly". And he then goes on to compare this spider with his soul, giving even more adjectives such as "detached". How does this impact your perception about the person in the story?

    1. O, how shall summer’s honey breath hold out Against the wrackful siege of batt’ring days,

      In the first line of quatrain 2 the author is describing a breath so delicately and beautifully, but in the next he completely shatters his elegant phrasing with violent words like wrackful and batt'ring. This helps to give even more meaning and power to his argument that even the most beautiful of things dies.