UNIVERSIDAD PEDAGOGICA NACIONAL FRANCISCO

MORAZAN
SAN PEDRO SULA REGIONAL CAMPUS
LITERATURE AND LANGUAGE DEPARTMENT

Introduction to Literature
Professor: Valladares Navas Yuri,
M.A

Student: Kelvin Alexander Reyes

Assignment 9
Exercise 1.
1. What is the irony in the poem “Sea Lullaby” by Elinor Wylie?
The irony is in the concept of the poem that from the moment
one reads the subject, we think that it will be something sweet
and peaceful because it also talks about the sea, but as we read
the poem we realize that it is something totally different, it
speaks about a tragedy.
2. What is the mood in this poem?
Melancholic and sad.
3. Find imagery by highlighting the words and phrases and by
writing the words of the sense it appeals, close to the line
where it appears. (The first one is done).

Sea Lullaby
 Elinor Wylie

The old moon is tarnished…………sight (The sense appealed is sight)

With smoke of the flood,
The dead leaves are varnished
With colour like blood ....................sight
 
A treacherous smiler
With teeth white as milk,................sight
A savage beguiler
In sheathings of silk,........................touch
 
The sea creeps to pillage,
She leaps on her prey;
A child of the village
Was murdered today.
 
She came up to meet him
In a smooth golden cloak,............touch
She choked him and beat him
To death, for a joke.
 
Her bright locks were tangled,
She shouted for joy, ...................hearing
With one hand she strangled
A strong little boy.
 
Now in silence she lingers
Beside him all night
To wash her long fingers
In silvery light.
 
Exercise 2.
1. What does the apple poison tree represent?

In "The Poison Tree," the apple has multiple meanings,

representing "wrath," temptation and deception. The narrator
of the poem tells the story of nursing an angry grudge against
an enemy who has injured him. Rather than confronting his
enemy, he buries the grudge and nurses it.

2. What is the tone in the poem “A Poison Tree”?

In Blake's poem "A Poison Tree," the tone is almost clinically
detached and calculated, at odds with the poem's actual
content. This is particularly, chillingly clear in the final two lines,
when the speaker says he is "glad" to find his "foe outstretched
beneath the tree."
 3. Identify the ending rhyme by placing small letters close to
the rhyming words.

A Poison Tree

William Blake
I was angry with my friend:
I told my wrath, my wrath did end.
I was angry with my foe:
I told it not, my wrath did grow.

And I watered it in fears,

Night and morning with my tears;
And I sunned it with smiles,
And with soft deceitful wiles.

And it grew both day and night,

Till it bore an apple bright.
And my foe beheld it shine.
And he knew that it was mine,

And into my garden stole

When the night had veiled the pole;
In the morning glad I see
My foe outstretched beneath the tree.
Exercise 3

1. Write a short paragraph telling me your interpretation of the poem

“Nothing Gold Can Stay” by Robert Frost.
In early spring, the fresh buds on the trees are gold. This color is
the quickest to disappear from the natural world, however. The
fresh blossoms on the trees are flowers, but these flowers
disappear quickly too. They turn into leaves that fall to the
ground, just as humankind fell from the paradise of the Garden
of Eden, and just as the promising early light of morning gives
way to daytime. Nothing beautiful, fresh, or pure can last
forever.

2. Identify the rhyme by using small letters.

3. Find the allusion.

“So Eden sank to grief.” This is an allusion to the Garden of
Eden to indicate that the earth too is beautiful though for a
transient period.

Nothing Gold Can Stay

Robert Frost - 1874-1963

Nature’s first green is gold,

Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leafs a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.