Sonnet 18 Paraphrase

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? Shall I compare you to a summer's day?

Thou art more lovely and more temperate: You are more lovely and more constant:

Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, Rough winds shake the beloved buds of May

And summer's lease hath all too short a date: And summer is far too short:

Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines, At times the sun is too hot,

And often is his gold complexion dimm'd; Or often goes behind the clouds;

And every fair from fair sometime declines, And everything beautiful sometime will lose its beauty,

By chance, or nature's changing course, untrimm'd; By misfortune or by nature's planned out course.

But thy eternal summer shall not fade But your youth shall not fade,

Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st; Nor will you lose the beauty that you possess;

Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade, Nor will death claim you for his own,

When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st; Because in my eternal verse you will live forever.

So long as men can breathe or eyes can see, So long as there are people on this earth,

So long lives this and this gives life to thee. So long will this poem live on, making you immortal.

Notes

temperate (1): i.e., evenly-tempered; not overcome by passion.

the eye of heaven (5): i.e., the sun.
every fair from fair sometime declines (7): i.e., the beauty (fair) of everything beautiful (fair) will fade
(declines). Compare to Sonnet 116: "rosy lips and cheeks/Within his bending sickle's compass come."

nature's changing course (8): i.e., the natural changes age brings.
that fair thou ow'st (10): i.e., that beauty you possess.
in eternal lines...growest (12): The poet is using a grafting metaphor in this line. Grafting is a technique
used to join parts from two plants with cords so that they grow as one. Thus the beloved becomes
immortal, grafted to time with the poet's cords (his "eternal lines"). For commentary on whether this sonnet
is really "one long exercise in self-glorification", please see below.

Sonnet 18 is the best known and most well-loved of all 154 sonnets. It is also one of the most
straightforward in language and intent. The stability of love and its power to immortalize the subject of the
poet's verse is the theme.

The poet starts the praise of his dear friend without ostentation, but he slowly builds the image of his friend
into that of a perfect being. His friend is first compared to summer in the octave, but, at the start of the third
quatrain (9), he is summer, and thus, he has metamorphosed into the standard by which true beauty can
and should be judged. The poet's only answer to such profound joy and beauty is to ensure that his friend
be forever in human memory, saved from the oblivion that accompanies death. He achieves this through
his verse, believing that, as history writes itself, his friend will become one with time. The final couplet
reaffirms the poet's hope that as long as there is breath in mankind, his poetry too will live on, and ensure
the immortality of his muse.
 Analysis Of Sonnet 18
Sonnet 18 is devoted to praising a friend or lover, traditionally known as the 'fair youth', the sonnet itself a
guarantee that this person's beauty will be sustained. Even death will be silenced because the lines of
verse will be read by future generations, when speaker and poet and lover are no more, keeping the fair
image alive through the power of verse.

 The opening line is almost a tease, reflecting the speaker's uncertainty as he attempts to compare his
lover with a summer's day. The rhetorical question is posed for both speaker and reader and even the
metrical stance of this first line is open to conjecture. Is it pure iambic pentameter? This comparison will
not be straightforward.
This image of the perfect English summer's day is then surpassed as the second line reveals that the
lover is more lovely and more temperate. Lovely is still quite commonly used in England and carries the
same meaning (attractive, nice, beautiful) whilst temperate in Shakespeare's time meant gentle-natured,
restrained, moderate and composed.

 The second line refers directly to the lover with the use of the second person pronoun Thou, now archaic.
As the sonnet progresses however, lines 3 - 8 concentrate on the ups and downs of the weather, and are
distanced, taken along on a steady iambic rhythm (except for line 5, see later).
Summer time in England is a hit and miss affair weather-wise. Winds blow, rain clouds gather and before
you know where you are, summer has come and gone in a week.The season seems all too short - that's
true for today as it was in Shakespeare's time - and people tend to moan when it's too hot, and grumble
when it's overcast.

 The speaker is suggesting that for most people, summer will pass all too quickly and they will grow old,
as is natural, their beauty fading with the passing of the season.
With repetition, alliteration and internal and end rhyme, the reader is taken along through this uncertain,
changing, fateful time. Note the language of these lines: rough, shake, too short, Sometimes, too hot,
often, dimmed, declines, chance, changing, untrimmed.
And there are interesting combinations within each line, which add to the texture and
soundscape: Rough/buds, shake/May, hot/heaven, eye/shines, often/gold/complexion, fair from fair,
sometimes/declines, chance/nature/changing, nature/course.

Life is not an easy passage through Time for most, if not all people. Random events can radically alter
who we are, and we are all subject to Time's effects.

In the meantime the vagaries of the English summer weather are called up again and again as the
speaker attempts to put everything into perspective. Finally, the lover's beauty, metaphorically an eternal
summer, will be preserved forever in the poet's immmortal lines.

And those final two lines, 13 and 14, are harmony itself. Following twelve lines without any punctuated
caesura (a pause or break in the delivery of the line), line 13 has a 6/4 caesura and the last line a 4/6.
The humble comma sorts out the syntax, leaving everything in balance, giving life.

Perhaps only someone of genius could claim to have such literary powers, strong enough to preserve the
beauty of a lover, beyond even death.
Sonnet 18 Language and Tone

Note the use of the verb shall and the different tone it brings to separate lines. In the first line it refers to the

uncertainty the speaker feels. In line nine there is the sense of some kind of definite promise, whilst line eleven

conveys the idea of a command for death to remain silent.

The word beauty does not appear in this sonnet. Both summer and fair are used instead.

Thou, thee and thy are used throughout and refer directly to the lover, the fair youth.

And/Nor/So long repeat, reinforce

 Further Analysis of Sonnet 18
Sonnet 18 is an English or Shakespearean sonnet, 14 lines in length, made up of 3 quatrains and a
couplet. It has a regular rhyme scheme: abab cdcd efef gg. All the end rhymes are full, the exceptions
being temperate/date.

Metrical Analysis
Sonnet 18 is written in traditional iambic pentameter but it has to be remembered that this is the overall
dominant metre (meter in USA). Certain lines contain trochees, spondees and possibly anapaests.

 Whilst some lines are pure iambic, following the pattern of daDUM daDUMdaDUM daDUM daDUM, no
stress syllable followed by a stressed syllable, others are not.
Why is this an important issue? Well, the metre helps dictate the rhythm of a line and also how it should
be read. Take that first line for example:

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?

There's no doubting that this is a question so therefore the stress would normally fall on the first word,
Shall. Say it quietly to yourself and you'll find the natural thing to do is place a little more emphasis on
that opening word, because it is a question being asked. If the emphasis was on the second word, I, the
sense would be lost. So it is no longer an iamb in the first foot, but a trochee, an inverted iamb.

Shall I / compare / thee to / a sum / mer's day? (trochee, iamb x4)

 But, there is an alternative analysis of this first line, which focuses on the mild caesura (pause, after thee)
and scans an amphibrach and an anapaest in a tetrameter line:
Shall I / compare thee / to a sum / mer's day?
Here we have an interesting mix, the stress still on the opening word in the first foot, with the second foot
of non stressed, stressed, non stressed, which makes an amphibrach. The third foot is the anapaest, the
fourth the lonely iamb. There are four feet so the line is in tetrameter.

Both scans are valid because of the flexible way in which English can be read and certain words only
partially stressed. For me, when I read this opening line, the second version seems more natural
because of that faint pause after the word thee. I cannot read the opening line whilst sticking to the
daDUM daDUM iambic pentameter beat. It just doesn't ring true. You try it and find out for yourself.

More Analysis - Lines That Are Not Iambic Pentameter

Line 3
Again, the iambic pentameter rhythm is altered by the use of a spondee at the start, two stressed single
syllable words:

Rough winds / do shake / the dar / ling buds / of May,

This places emphasis on the meaning and gives extra weight to the rough weather.

Line 5
Again an inversion occurs, the opening trochee replacing the iamb:

Sometimes too hot the eye of heaven shines,

The stress is on the first syllable, after which the iambic pattern continues to the end. Note the metaphor
(eye of heaven) for the sun, and the inversion of the line grammatically, where too hot ordinarily would be
at the end of the line. This is called anastrophe, the change of order in a sentence.
Line 11
Note the spondee, this time in the middle of the line. And a trochee opens: Nor shall death
brag thou wand ‘rest in his shade, The emphasis is on death brag, the double stress reinforcing the
initial trochee to make quite a powerful negation.
William Wordsworth and Composed upon Westminster Bridge
Composed upon Westminster Bridge, September 3, 1802 is William Wordsworth's sonnet to the capital
city of London, written before the full effects of the industrial revolution had reached the metropolis.
Wordsworth and his sister Dorothy were on their way to the port of Dover in July 1802, en route for Paris.
Imagine an early dawn, hardly anyone on the streets, when along comes a carriage and horses, stopping
temporarily to take in the view over the River Thames. This could be the moment of inspiration for the
romantic poet.

When he returned to England he finished the sonnet and it was published a few years later in 1807.
There are variations on this story but the basic idea is that Wordsworth was enthralled by the smokeless
vista before him, interpreting the city skyline as a natural landscape, beautiful and quiet, most people not
yet going about their business.
Some are critical of the poet for portraying London as some kind of sublime idyll, when the true nature of
life in the capital was far more brutal and down to earth. This was at a time when destitute kids scraped a
living sifting through the mud of the Thames for pennies, when the river itself was a stinking mess and
many perished from diseases such as cholera.

Poets such as William Blake were well aware of the human suffering the city caused and wrote reflective
poems.

Others argue that Wordsworth had no option, being a romantic, seeing the world through rose-tinted
glasses so to speak, having to express his feelings about what he saw at that time on the bridge. And in
1802 London would be relatively small, the architecture modest, the countryside, with open fields and
woods, not that far from busy city roads.

 The sonnet is still causing debate between realists and romantics. On the one hand it's nothing
more than fourteen lines of sentimental invention, with hyperbole; on the other it's a fresh
perspective, an enlightened vision that lifts the spirit.
 There is also a kind of paradox in the idea that a city can be part of nature, or that an ugly, man-
made city can be perceived as being as beautiful as a natural landscape. Which is it?
Somewhere between the two lies poetic craft and the question of whether or not the poet has
successfully twinned form with content. No doubting though the popularity of this well known sonnet, its
scanty plot of ground, and its ability to split opinion down the middle.

 Composed upon Westminster Bridge is a Petrarchan or Italian sonnet, with the first eight lines, the
octave, being observation, and the last six lines, the sestet, the conclusion.

Analysis of Composed upon Westminster bridge

Composed upon Westminster Bridge, September 3, 1802 is Wordsworth's delicately wrought dedication
to the capital of England, the city of London.
From that grand opening line, with its showy declaration, to the steady iambic beat of the metropolitan
heart, this sonnet aims to do one thing: romanticise what might be deemed ugly.
This is a whole new view of a great city before it has properly woken up. The speaker is adamant that a
person would have to be dull...of soul not to be affected by such a vista, both moving and majestic.

 The fourth line is interesting because it sets the reader and speaker in the absolute present; the
reader is looking through the eyes of the artist as it were, as dawn lights up the architecture and the
great river.
And the metropolis comes alive in the following line - it wears the morning, a calmed personified giant.
Wordsworth brings in that most romantic of notions, beauty, and attaches it to what is potentially one of
the least beautiful of places, a growing, heaving city.

But this is a city of dream-like quality, as yet unpeopled, set in fresh light, at rest, at ease with fields and
sky, not yet subject to the smoke of the chimney stacks or the smog of industry.
The poet could be forgiven for thinking that this is not London he's looking at but some other natural
habitat, perhaps a mountain or a series of lightly lit cliffs and rocks. In line 9 the feelings of the poet reach
a kind of fever pitch, an echo of the opening line sounding - he has never seen anything like this dawn,
this splendid sunlight.
He is clear in his heart and mind. He's never felt so calm. It's as if the city has him in a trance. Perhaps
we've all experienced similar feelings when waking up really early in some great city, and venturing out to
take in that special atmosphere, when there's no one around at all and the streets are deserted.

Wordsworth interprets these feelings he has about the overview from that bridge; he's trying to capture
the emotion generated by the things he observes. From a ship to a dome, from the river to the houses,
the whole suspended shabang.

As to the sonnet's inherent beauty, that is up to the reader, but there are some intricate rhythms involved
in these lines, and the pace is controlled with clever syntax.
Certain lines stand out for their sense of wonder - lines 4, 5, 8, 9, 10 - and overall the word intimacy isn't
lost to the differing rhythms.
One oddity is line 13 that starts with Dear God! - you can just picture Wordsworth on the carriage top
exclaiming. He liked to use such phrases in some of his poetry, an attempt to reflect the language of the
street?
So, in conclusion, beyond reality lies the romantic, be it a city turned into a natural phenomenon as in this
sonnet, coated, some might say, in too sweet a layer of wonder.
Wordsworth's 'strongly felt emotions' come through loud and clear and he certainly created a timeless
piece that beguiles, irritates and puzzles as it takes the reader along into a shared metropolitan
experience.

More Analysis of Composed upon Westminster Bridge

Composed upon Westminster Bridge has the traditional 14 lines split into an octave and a sestet. The
rhyme scheme is abbaabba cdcdcd. All the rhymes are full except for lines 2 and 3: by/majesty.

Full Metrical Analysis

A traditional sonnet is made up of a lines with pure iambic pentameter. In Wordsworth's sonnet iambic
beat does dominate but only one line consists of five iambic feet, without caesura or obstacle to flow, and
that is the last line.
Lines 3, 4, 5 and 12 are iambic pentameter but the syntax and caesura interrupt the steady beat,
reflecting the uncertainty and oddity of the scene. Wordsworth must have purposely constructed it this
way to highlight the unusual nature of his subject.
The last line is the only one with a consistent da-DUM beat, the mighty heart beating, the city asleep.

Earth has not anything to show more fair: (note opening trochee)
Dull would he be of soul who could pass by (same trochee first foot)
A sight so touching in its majesty: (caesura: touching in)
This City now doth, like a garment, wear (commas slow down line)
The beauty of the morning; silent, bare, (semi-colon and commas)
Ships, towers, domes, theatres, and temples lie (2 syllables tower and theatre)
Open unto the fields, and to the sky; (trochee first foot)
All bright and glittering in the smokeless air. (2 syllables glittering)
Never did sun more beautifully steep (opening trochee)
In his first splendour, valley, rock, or hill; (commas to slow line)
Ne'er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep! (opening trochee;spondee)
The river glideth at his own sweet will: (caesura glideth at)
Dear God! the very houses seem asleep; (opening spondee)
And all that mighty heart is lying still! (pure iambic pentameter)

Further Analysis
Enjambment
Lines 2,4,6 and 9 have no punctuation to end them so the reader can carry on straight into the next line,
a reflection of the flow of feeling as the speaker describes the view.
Simile
Line 4 contains a simile...This city now doth, like a garment, wear
Hyperbole

The opening line perhaps, and lines 9 and 11 show some exaggeration.

Line 1
Earth has not anything to show more fair:

 While crossing over the Westminster Bridge, the speaker makes a bold statement: he has found the most
beautiful scene on the planet. All you other artists can call off the search! Wordsworth has located the very
heart of beauty, or "fairness."
 Of course, though, he's exaggerating. He really means something like, "At this particular moment, I can't
imagine anywhere being more beautiful than the place I'm standing." It's almost more a reflection of his mood
than of the outside world. He can't compare the scene from the bridge with anything except his own
memories, but since that's all anyone can do we'll let him run with this one.
 The line ends with a colon, letting us know that he's going to tell us what earth is "showing" after the line
break.

Line 2-3
Dull would he be of soul who could pass by
A sight so touching in its majesty:

 Instead of trying to describe the scene, as we might expect by now (hurry up, a sonnet is only 14 lines long!),
the speaker tries to express how beautiful it is from another angle as well.
 He justifies his decision to stop his coach along the way to look at the view from the bridge.
 He says that anyone who didn't stop, who just passed by with a glance, would be "dull...of soul." The opposite
of dull is sharp, so we're imagining that the speaker's soul must be like one of those knives they advertise on TV
that can cut through coins.
 The person who could just pass by has been jaded and worn down by experience to the point of dullness. He's
also boring, which is another meaning of the word "dull."
 The sight from the bridge is "touching in its majesty," an intriguing phrase that suggests both intimacy and
grandeur. "Touching" scenes are often small and intimate, like a kid giving flowers to his sick grandmother.
"Majestic" scenes are often large and public, like a snow-covered mountain or a king entering a throne room.
The view from Westminster Bridge combines both this elements.
 The speaker feels both awed by and close to the landscape.
 He uses another colon: maybe now he'll stop keeping us in suspense and describe this amazing view.

Lines 4-5
This City now doth, like a garment, wear
The beauty of the morning;

 We learn what time it is: London "wears" the morning like a nice coat or some other piece of clothing
("garment").
 These lines hint that maybe the morning, not London itself, is responsible for the stunning quality of the view.
As in, the garment could be so beautiful that it doesn't matter what the person wearing it looks like. Anyone
could be wearing it, and you'd be like, "That's one heck of a garment, there."
 Similarly, the word "now" shows that the beauty depends on the time of day. It's a fleeting, transient beauty.
Maybe when the morning is over, and London is forced to change clothes, as it were, the speaker would think,
"Oh. Now it's just London again. Been there, seen that." (There we go with our skepticism again.)
Lines 5-7
silent, bare,
Ships, towers, domes, theatres, and temples lie
Open unto the fields, and to the sky;

 In general terms, the speaker describes some of the sights that are visible from Westminster Bridge.
 The words "silent" and "bare" are positioned in the poem such that they could describe either the morning or
the sights. Because of the semi-colon before them, the sights are the more obvious choice, but the ambiguity is
important.
 The setting is "silent" because of the early hour which, from Dorothy Wordsworth's journal, we know was
around 5 or 6am.
 "Bare" is an interesting word that means "naked" or "unadorned." It contrasts with the image of the city
wearing clothing from line 4. Here, the ships and buildings are nude.
 From Westminster Bridge in 1802, you could have seen a lot of the highlights of London, including the "ships"
of the River Thames; the "dome" of the famous St. Paul's Cathedral, designed by the architect Christopher
Wren; and the iconic Tower of London.
 One thing you could not have seen in 1802, but that you could see today, is the Big Ben clock – it wasn't built
yet.
 Despite being all crowded together within one city, the speaker gives an impression of spaciousness by noting
that the ships and buildings are "open" to the fields of London and to the sky.
 One source points out that London had fields that were close to the city in 1802 but that no longer exist
(source).

Line 8
All bright and glittering in the smokeless air.

 The speaker sums up the whole scene at the end of the poem's first chunk of eight lines, called an "octet."
 He focuses on the early morning summer sunlight, which makes the buildings "bright and glittering." The word
"glittering" in particular suggests that the scene is not static but rather constantly changing with the shifting
light.
 Our favorite word in the poem is "smokeless." What a word. He means that neither the characteristic London
Fog nor smoke from chimneys obscures the bright light.
 In London, as in San Francisco, it is common for fog to cover the city throughout the morning. The speaker is
lucky to catch the city on a morning that is completely free of fog.

Lines 9-10
Never did sun more beautifully steep
In his first splendour, valley, rock, or hill;

 The speaker returns to his bold claim from the beginning of the poem: that earth has never presented a scene
quite so beautiful as this one.
 Specifically, he compares the morning sunlight falling on the city to the sunlight that might cover more remote
parts of the countryside, such as a valley, a boulder or mountainous cliff ("rock"), or a hillside.
 These sights would have been more familiar to Wordsworth than the scenery of London, who spent most of his
life in rural parts of England, such as the picturesque Lake District in the northwest part of the country.
 "First splendour" just means morning.
 Basically, he's ragging on his hometown, saying even it can't compare with this view of London.
 The word "steep" means to submerge or cover – think of how you let a tea bag "steep" in water.

Lines 11-12
Ne'er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep!
The river glideth at his own sweet will:
  The speaker continues on the topic of the Greatest Scene Ever. He describes how the vision of London makes
him feel calm, which is perhaps surprising because London is a huge, bustling city. That's a little like saying you
go to Manhattan to get away from it all.
 The speaker seems to again compare London to places that you would normally think of as calming, like the
hills and valleys from line 10.
 This section of the poem engages in the personification of various elements of the picture. Here the river is
described as a patient person who takes his time and doesn't allow himself to be rushed. He moves according
to "his own sweet will."
 The river Thames is not a fast-moving river.

Lines 13-14
Dear God! the very houses seem asleep;
And all that mighty heart is lying still!

 You would think the speaker couldn't possibly get more excited about this view after declaring it the most
beautiful thing on earth, but no: he gets more excited.
 He cries out to God as if he has just recognized something astonishing he had not noticed before.
 He personifies the houses as asleep, when it's actually the people inside the houses who are sleeping at this
early hour.
 The city looks like one big, peaceful, sleeping body. Shh...don't wake it.
 The "heart" of this body is "lying still" for the moment before the city awakens for a new day. The heart
probably doesn't refer to anything specific, but rather the city's energy or vitality.
 The last two lines mark a shift in tone with their two exclamation marks. The tone goes from amazed to Really
Amazed!
HE WISHES FOR THE CLOTHS OF HEAVEN
A critical analysis of the poem "He wishes for the cloths og Heaven" by W.B Yeats...

HAD I the heavens' embroidered cloths,

Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half-light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams

The poem “He wishes for the cloths of heaven” by W.B Yeats, is one in which there is a noticeable change of mood at
one point. The poet uses a variety of words and statement to show this.

In the first five lines of the poem, he expressed his love for the woman of his dreams Maud Gonne as the poem was
written for her. Here, the poet talks about all the real and unreal things he isready to adorn her with. He tells her of how
much of a treasure she is to him. He would beautify her with “the cloths of heaven” He wishes he could give her all to
glorify her beauty but in the real world it is unattainable.

In the last three lines of the poem, the poet comes back to reality as he spoke about the outward but now speaks
inwardly. He says that he cannot bring the perfection of heaven to the woman rather he would give her his dreams. He
ends the poem with a warning note as she never can tell what her actions would do to his dreams so she should tread
upon it softly.

In the first two lines, the poet talks about the beauty of heaven, colours and lights

“Had I the heavens’ embroidered cloths

Enwrought with golden and silver lights”

The poet makes it known to the woman he loves. He says here that if he had the well tailored cloths of heaven, how
glorious and beautiful would they be? In reference to the word “heaven” a beautiful picture is created as heaven
signifies perfection. As he wishes for the cloths, so does he wish he could gain the love of the woman which is
unattainable. The poet then goes on to speak about the cloths been covered with golden and silver lights. The lights
signify the beauty of the heavenly bodies the sun and moon even as they both give lights at different times of the day,
so will she be an illuminator of light. This also brings an idea of perfection and worth. The fact that the Gold and silver
metals are of great value on earth, the heavens cloths are adorned with the bright light.

Yeats then goes on to give a detailed description of the cloths and how magnificent it looks.

“The blue and dim and the dark cloths

Of night and light and the half-lights”

The colour blue, being mentioned in the line, introduces the thought of holiness as it creates a sense of purity and
religious admiration. We begin to see the cloths from a religious perspective as the poet likens it to the woman
blasphemously.

The poet speaks about “the dim and the dark”. The poet use of alliteration is effective as it creates a pleasant picture of
the different beautiful colours being combined together to give an unimaginable beauty. The colour also gives a
description of the sky. Her beauty is one which could be related and ascribed to the sky. The poet begins to talk of
“nights and light and half-light”, the poet also reinforces the beauty of the light and sky and its relation to the cloths.
The picture of an unquenchable, radiating and glowing cloth is created.

Yeats speaks about what he would offer her and how it would be offered to her.

“I would spread the cloths under your feet”

If only he could attain the cloths of heaven, and give it to her, a cloth as precious as the most valuable metals, in all its
beauty, he would lay it on her feet. This also reinforces the idea of religious worship. He would graze her feet with it. He
would adore and elevate her whilst at her feet. This shows how much in love he feels on the inside for this woman that
he would place her on a pedestal.

The tone of the poem changes drastically, at this point as he returns to reality. In the last three lines , the poet refers
inwardly and pleads with the woman he loves.

“But I being poor, have only my dreams

I have spread my dreams under your feet”

The poet says here that as he cannot afford to give her all of the beauty and treasures of heaven, he would give her his
dreams; as his dreams are very important to him. As humans, our dreams should be important to us. For the poet to
spread his dreams under feet, he is giving himself to the woman. The dreams of the poet, are the same dreams which
created the cloths of heaven and giving them to her, gives us an idea of how highly and worthy he thinks of her.

The poet ends the poem with a note of warning to the woman he loves.

“Tread softly because you tread on my dreams”

He is telling the woman to be careful on how she treads for she treads on his dreams. He asks her to be careful on how
she rejects him and his advances towards her. She should treat him with consideration and not leave him forlorn. Her
constant rejections, could wreck his life.

The poem is worded so engaging and beautifully as it looks like a complex and heavy woven poem and this could be
treated as the beautiful cloths of heaven themselves which is almost unimaginable yet clearly structures in our minds.

Yeats rhymes every word at the end of a line with the same word as the line down. This reinforces the idea in our
subconscious mind as the image of cloths, lights, feets and dreams, are firmly created in our minds
Hope is the thing with feathers
George Dickson
Summary

The speaker describes hope as a bird (“the thing with feathers”) that perches in the soul. There, it
sings wordlessly and without pause. The song of hope sounds sweetest “in the Gale,” and it would
require a terrifying storm to ever “abash the little Bird / That kept so many warm.” The speaker says
that she has heard the bird of hope “in the chillest land— / And on the strangest Sea—”, but never,
no matter how extreme the conditions, did it ever ask for a single crumb from her.

Form

Like almost all of Dickinson’s poems, “ ‘Hope’ is the thing with feathers—...” takes the form of an
iambic trimeter that often expands to include a fourth stress at the end of the line (as in “And sings
the tune without the words—”). Like almost all of her poems, it modifies and breaks up the
rhythmic flow with long dashes indicating breaks and pauses (“And never stops—at all—”). The
stanzas, as in most of Dickinson’s lyrics, rhyme loosely in an ABCB scheme, though in this poem
there are some incidental carryover rhymes: “words” in line three of the first stanza rhymes with
“heard” and “Bird” in the second; “Extremity” rhymes with “Sea” and “Me” in the third stanza, thus,
technically conforming to an ABBB rhyme scheme.

Commentary

This simple, metaphorical description of hope as a bird singing in the soul is another example of
Dickinson’s homiletic style, derived from Psalms and religious hymns. Dickinson introduces her
metaphor in the first two lines (“ ‘Hope’ is the thing with feathers— / That perches in the soul—”),
then develops it throughout the poem by telling what the bird does (sing), how it reacts to hardship
(it is unabashed in the storm), where it can be found (everywhere, from “chillest land” to “strangest
Sea”), and what it asks for itself (nothing, not even a single crumb). Though written after “Success is
counted sweetest,” this is still an early poem for Dickinson, and neither her language nor her
themes here are as complicated and explosive as they would become in her more mature work
from the mid-1860s. Still, we find a few of the verbal shocks that so characterize Dickinson’s mature
style: the use of “abash,” for instance, to describe the storm’s potential effect on the bird, wrenches
the reader back to the reality behind the pretty metaphor; while a singing bird cannot exactly be
“abashed,” the word describes the effect of the storm—or a more general hardship—upon the
speaker’s hopes.
Lines 1-2
"Hope" is the thing with feathers -
That perches in the soul -

 Our speaker starts off on a hopeful note. She's not just being optimistic here.
She's literally talking about hope.
 Speaker note: we're just guessing that our speaker is a she at this point, since we've just
read one word of this poem. Check out "Speaker" for more details.
 Actually, she's talking about "Hope." What's up with those quotation marks?
 It's ambiguous. We have just read one single word at this point, so maybe things will clear
up.
 For now, though, we can say that quotation marks can be a sign of sarcasm, as in the
following sentence:
 I decided not to thank my dog Fido for his attempt to "redecorate" my living room by
shredding all the couch cushions.
 When something is in quotation marks, it can also be thought of as an idea or a concept:
 This massage chair is bringing me the ultimate in "user centered" technology.
 In this case, the latter explanation makes more sense. Our speaker probably wants us to
think about the idea of hope—you know, not some woman named Hope.
 Okay, that was a lot to say about just one word. So what about "hope"?
 Well, it has feathers, apparently. It also "perches," which seals the metaphor: our speaker
wants us to think of hope as a bird.
 Only, instead of a cage, this particular bird hangs out in the soul.
 That's one amazing bird. Let's see what else it can do…

Lines 3-4
And sings the tune without the words -
And never stops - at all -

 You know, this hope-bird just keeps impressing.

 The metaphor continues here, as our speaker tells us that this bird sings without words. That
seems appropriate. We don't know too many birds that include lyrics with their songs.
 It does more than just sing, though. It sings without stopping… as in ever. Maybe it should
get into the pop scene.
 But wait, this isn't just some big-lunged bird that likes to thing. Don't forget that we're in
metaphor land here. The speaker is really talking about hope.
 By this token, hope is something that never stops singing. In other words, hope is a steady
force. It's always there.
 Before we head off to the second stanza: did you hear any echoes in these lines?
 If you were listening closely, it might have sounded—almost—like line 2 rhymed with line 4.
Was Dickinson just bad at rhyming words?
 Also, what's up with all these dashes? They're at the end of every line, and they also offset
"at all" in line 4.
 You've got questions about the way this poem is put together? Don't worry—we've got lots
more to say about all this kind of stuff over in "Form and Meter."

Line 5
And sweetest - in the Gale - is heard -
  This new stanza picks up where the last one left off. The fancy poetic term for that
is enjambment.
 And the idea that it continues is this: the hope-bird is always singing, and it sounds
"sweetest" when there's bad weather going on. (A "gale" is a strong wind.)
 Now, why would a bird be singing sweetly in the middle of bad weather? Most birds we
know would be battening down their nests.
 Well, if this song is still tied metaphorically to hope (and it is), then the idea here is that,
when things are at their roughest, that's when hope is at its most beautiful.
 That checks out, right? When everything is falling apart, sometimes you only have hope left.
That makes hope a pretty special thing.
 Lucky for us, that bird never stops singing.

Lines 6-8
And sore must be the storm -
That could abash the little Bird
That kept so many warm -

 Here the speaker elaborates on her idea from line 5.

 Yes, the hope-bird sings most sweetly when things are rough. You know what else? Things
have to be really rough to dim the power of that music.
 Line 6 describes a "sore" storm. No, it hasn't just stubbed its toe. "Sore" can also mean
severe or intense.
 The idea, then, is that the storm would have to be really awful for it to "abash" our hope-
bird.
 "Abash" can mean to embarrass, but it can also mean to disconcert or make nervous.
 So, for anything to lessen the power of this hope-bird's sweet singing—a force that has
helped so many people ("kept so many warm")—things would have to be really, awfully, just
super-bad… like Jar-Jar Binks in Star Wars bad. We're talking seriously… bad here, folks.

Lines 9-10
I've heard it in the chillest land -
And on the strangest Sea -

 In the final stanza, our speaker starts off by talking about Jamaica, or somewhere equally
chill—maybe Hawaii or Tahiti.
 No wait—scratch that. As it turns out, "chill" actually meant "cold" back in Dickinson's day—
imagine that. So, our speaker is not talking about a chill place to hang out and kick it.
Instead, she means this more literally, as in the coldest place on Earth. Think the Arctic
Circle… or Fargo.
 But don't think too literally here. She doesn't have a specific place in mind. The point is that
our hope-bird's song can still be heard even in the worst of environments, when it seems like
the world has gone cold or when everything seems strange.
 Even then, when all chips are down and things seem totally awful, that hope-bird just keeps
tweeting away.

Lines 11-12
Yet - never - in Extremity,
It asked a crumb - of me.
 Our speaker can't help but pay the hope-bird one more compliment.
 To recap: this little dude is always there, singing his heart out, even—or especially—when
times are rough. Only the most purely awful situations could throw this bird off its game.
 Here, the speaker references those really bad times with the word "Extremity."
 Now, this is a strange choice of words, we have to admit. To most folks, an extremity is an
arm or a leg—something located at the extreme end of your body.
 Another way to think about this word, though, is as the extreme version of difficulty—in
other words: the worst hard time.
 And now, here's one more thing that's great about the hope-bird: even when things are at
their worst, it never asks anything in return. It's just there to help.
 Thanks, hope-bird. You truly are the best.
Love Is Not All Analysis
Love is not all: it is not meat nor drink
The poem, which can be read in full here, begins with a basic statement that stands to summarize the first half of the
poem, and is also the title, “Love is not all.” This is followed up by to more statements that carry the poem through the
first quatrain. Millay states that, “Love is not all;” it is not, she continues, either meat or drink. It is also neither,
“slumber nor a roof against the rain.” These are things that are critical to human survival, shelter, sleep, food and water.
They plainly contrast with the emotion of love, something that Millay is hoping to call attention to. She is attempting to
lessen loves importance by comparing to things one physically cannot live without.
Continuing on to the second half of the first quatrain, Millay creates another metaphor, or a comparison between two
unlikely elements.

Nor yet a floating spar to men that sink

And rise and sink and rise and sink again;
In this instance Millay is once again comparing love to something physically critical to human survival, a “spar.” A spar is
a strong pole that is used as a mast of a ship. In this comparison, it is something a man on a sinking ship would want
desperately as a way to reinforce his damaged vessel. Love would do him little good at this critical moment. The next
line is a repetition of the motions of a drowning man as he sinks below the surface only to rise up again and sink once
more.

The second quatrain begins with:

Love can not fill the thickened lung with breath,

Millay continues the comparison at the end of the first quatrain as she speaks here of death and the little good love will
have in stopping it. In this case the “thicken[ing] [of] lung.” This could refer once again to drowning or more likely to
tuberculosis. This second theory is reinforced by the first half of the next line:

Nor clean the blood,

It is well known that when one is afflicted with tuberculosis the lungs can begin to fill with blood and during the 1930’s
TB was much more prevalent than it is today. This makes it a likely disease for Millay to have chosen to contrast against
love. She makes one last comparison in this quatrain, describing how love cannot set the fractured bone. In general with
these metaphors she is attempting to get across the notion that love is nothing but an emotion that can do nothing for
one in a critical, life threatening situation. This is the turning point of the sonnet, or volta. A volta is a vital point in
almost all sonnets in which many things can happen. The transition from one speaker to another, a change in opinion,
or in this case, a change in perspective. After this point the speaker starts using first person to address the issue more
personally.

Yet many a man is making friends with death

Even as I speak, for lack of love alone.
In these lines Millay references all the comparisons above, and her speaker is saying, basically, that even with all the
truths that have thus far been stated, men still kill themselves because they do not have love. This line is written with a
kind of disbelief as if the speaker has a hard time understanding how this could possibly be the case. The next quatrain
and final couplet are single idea contemplated by the speaker on what she might do in various situations if she had love
and could give it away to save herself or assuage some kind of pain.

It well may be that in a difficult hour,

Pinned down by pain and moaning for release,
Here the speaker begins to list possible scenarios in which she might be willing to, give away “your love for peace,” as
she states in the last line of the final quatrain. These two scenarios mirror the ones the speaker has described in the first
half of the poem, a difficult hour without food, water, or shelter, and pinned down by pain as if afflicted with a deadly
disease such as tuberculosis was then.

The next line is one of the most poignant.

Or nagged by want past resolution’s power,

In this line the speaker remembers her life before the start of this love she is ruminating on. She remembers the
decisions she used to make and the resolution, or determination, that they had. One may infer that now, at least to the
speaker, her decisions are weaker, influenced by love’s sway or the stronger will of her partner. The final comparison
comes in the first line of the couplet in which the speaker considers “trading the memory” of one particularly special
night for food, These are all things, the speaker contemplates, she may be willing to sell her love to gain, or regain.

The final line of the poem is the conclusion of all of this contemplation and consideration. She considers once more that
she may “sell your love,” but concludes that, even with all her rational arguments throughout the sonnet, she does not
think she would. This final turn in the last line of the poem shows the speaker to be just as fallible and subject to the
control love places over one’s decisions as all those she formally references.
The Soldier Analysis
IF I should die, think only this of me:
That there’s some corner of a foreign field
That is forever England. There shall be
In that rich earth a richer dust concealed;
A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware,
Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam,
A body of England’s, breathing English air,
Washed by the rivers, blest by the suns of home.
The poem starts off with what might be considered a sense of foreboding. Although one might think
that this hints at the nature of the poem that is misleading as the poem almost espouses the idea of
dying during war time, rather than condemning it. This almost flies in the face of General Patton
who once said “The object of war is not to die for your country but to make the other bastard die
for his”! The opening line also provides a tone to the poem that makes it feel almost like an
epistolary, as if the poet is confessing in a letter or journal.

As soon as the second and third line we see the narrator put a positive spin on his potential demise.
I say “his” assuming the gender of the narrator. Unfortunately at the start of the First World War
the roles of women in the military were non-existent and so it is safe to assume the narrator is a
man. He talks of his death in a foreign field, this is presumably a reference a battlefield. But rather
than lamenting the notion of his own demise he claims that it will mean there is a piece of England
in that foreign country. So the suggestion here is that in some ways his death would be a victory.

Referring to his corpse as being “richer dust” is an interesting choice of words here and perhaps a
reference to the phrase used during a funeral service. The classic “ashes to ashes, dust to dust” line.
This idea that his body is simply made of dust isn’t necessarily totally symbolic. After all we are
primarily a carbon-based life form!

The dust metaphor continues into the fifth line where the poet talks about how that dust was
formed and shaped by England. The concept that he is trying to put across is that he is the very
embodiment of England, of course the wider suggestion is that any soldier who dies for their
country fulfils that same criteria. That soldiers are “shaped” by England and so when they die
overseas they act almost like a seed, spreading Englishness.

The final three lines of the Octave are full of patriotic notions. They really create an image of
England being fantastic. This is done with the evocation on the natural world. Talking of flowers, the
air and rivers, these all help to create the image of England being a beautiful place. Through doing
that the narrator is able to infer that a soldier can help to take the very fragments that helped to
create that beauty and transport it to a foreign country. This act, if it were real, would of course be
very noble.

And think, this heart, all evil shed away,

A pulse in the eternal mind, no less
Gives somewhere back the thoughts by England given;
Her sights and sounds; dreams happy as her day;
And laughter, learnt of friends; and gentleness,
In hearts at peace, under an English heaven.
As is often the case with a sonnet the second stanza approaches a new concept. In this case it
appears that the narrator is adding a further thought due to the first line. “and think this” makes it
seem like he has had an epiphany.
The use of language in this stanza is really interesting. It talks of hearts and minds in an attempt to
personify England. The reason for doing this is because people have a vested interest in people. If
you can humanise a country you can increase its value in the eyes of people. What I mean by this is
that a person probably wouldn’t justify dying for bits of rock and dirt, but for another person? Well
that could be something worth giving your life for.

Note the use of the word “eternal”. Whilst not referencing England directly its use is very
deliberate, it puts the thought of eternity into your mind so you associate that with England. This
poem has a sense that England will prevail, that our sovereignty is eternal.

The poem draws to its conclusion in the final tercet. Once again this is used to extol the virtues of
English culture. This is made to feel very visceral by drawing on the senses. This isn’t just about how
England looks, but how it sounds as well. These descriptions are almost a way to justify what was
said in the first stanza.

If the first stanza is saying it’s okay to die in war because it is good for your country, the second
stanza is justifying that by suggesting “look, this is what you’d be dying for, isn’t it great?”

The final line is very clever. It uses really positive language in order to infer that dying in the field of
battle ends up with you being at peace. It results in you ending up in heaven. Not just any heaven
though, an English heaven. Can we then infer from this that there is a suggestion that an English
heaven would be superior to any other nation’s heaven? I mean most religions would suggest that
all nations share one heaven! I don’t think that is what is what is being suggested here. Rather I
think that the phrase is used to make a comparison. The suggestion being that England is the closest
you can come to heaven in the mortal world.

Form and Tone

The Soldier is Petrarchan sonnet (or Italian Sonnet if you prefer.) This means it has 14 lines which
are separated into stanzas. The rhyming pattern for this is typical of a Petrarchan sonnet, being
ABBAABBA CDECDE. It is full of positivity and seems to glorify the idea of a person dying for their
country. Due to its powerful convictions it is a poem that remains quite popular with military
enthusiasts and as such has found its way into popular culture featuring in the music of Pink Floyd
and Muse and finding its way onto television screens by appearing in the TV show MASH