Grammatical Features

A side from the lexical features used in the poems under study, the researcher found out that
said poems employed certain grammatical features. These features reflect the physical structures of the
sentenced in the poems
These structures includes shifting, inversion, parallelism, omissions, catalogue, caption, apposition and
duplicated subject.

Shifting. Shifting or the change made in the normal word order of the sentence was noted in
nine of the poems under study.

The first poem that bears this kind of grammatical feature is Anxiety of a Young Lady to Get
Married. This is illustrated in the lines that follow:

Ripe, the plumes fall from the bough:

In this line, the adjective, ripe, is placed before the determiner, the , when normally, it should
immediately precede the noun, plums, which it modifies. Hence, the line would read: The ripe plums fall
from the bough.

Ye whose hearts no me are set

What is noticeable in this particular line is the change in the order of the object and the verb.
Normally, the object immediately follows the verb. Hence, when reordered, the line would read: Ye
whose hearts are the set on me.

Ye who wish my love to gain

The prepositional phase, to gain, in this line is part of the verb, wish, therefore, its normal
position should be right after the latter. Therefore, the line would read: Ye who wish to gain my love

Ye who me with ardor seek

The verb, seek, is misplaced in this line. While it is supposed to follow the subject, it is placed far
from it. Thus, the line, when normally stated, would read: Ye who seek me with ardor.

The second poem from Gitanjali was also found with shifting. This is seen in the following line:

Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake

It is noted in this line that the subject and the verb are placed after the object of the verb.
Normally, the object of the verb immediately follows the verb which it modifies. So, when the subject
and the verb are transferred to their normal locations in the sentence, the line would read: My Father,
let my country awake into that heaven of freedom. Moreover, the whole of this reordered line should
also be transferred at the beginning of the poem because the rest of the lines describe the heaven of
freedom the speaker prays for his country. This particular shift is illustrated below:
 Where the mind is without fear and the head us held high;
Where knowledge is free;
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments by narrow domestic walls;
Where words come out from the depth of truth;
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection;
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way
Into the dreary desert sand of dead habit;
Where the mind is led forward by thee into ever-widening thought and
action-
Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake

The poem, The Dead Man Ariseth and Singeth a Hymm to the Sun was likewise found with
Shifting. An
Is shown below:

From thee we come, in thee (we) are deified.

This line is part of the 28-line poem that glorifies the sun god. Here, the speakers recognize the
power of the sun as their origin and their reason for being dignified. However, in so expressing such a
praise to the sun, the writer use shifting in the line that the preposition phrase, from thee, the functions
as the object of the verb, comes before the subject and the verb of the sentence. In the same manner,
the prepositional phrase, in thee, in the second half of the line should also come before the omitted
subject, we, and the verb, are deified. Hence, when these said changes are put in their proper order, the
line would read: We come from these and we are deified in thee.

Another poem that was found with shifting is Telephone Conversion. Since the poem is the
telephone conversation between a white landlady and an African applicant, the two reach a point where
the landlady insults the African’s color and latter gets insulted, yet, still tries to reason out his skin. This
situation is found in the line, below which at the same time employed shifting:

“THAT’S DARK, ISN’T IT?’ Not altogether,

Facially, I am brunette, but madam you should see
The rest of me. Palm of my hand, soles of my feet
Are a peroxide blonde. Friction, caused – (them)
Foolishly madam – by sitting down has turned
My bottom raven black – one moment Madam!” – sensing
Her receiver rearing on the thunderclap
About my ears – ‘Madam, ‘I pleaded wouldn’t you rather
See for yourself?’
 The above diagram shows that a number of words in this particular part of the poem have been
transferred from their normal word order. The first is the adverb, foolishly, which supposed to be placed
immediately before the verb, caused, which it modifies. However, it is found far from it. Second, the
noun phrase, my bottom, is supposed to be found between the prepositional phrase, by sitting down,
and the verb, has turned, because it functions as the subject of the particular sentence. Then, the object
of the verb of the verb, raven black, has also been positioned far from the verb that it is supposed to
follow. Thus, when all these are properly positioned, the line would read: Friction foolishly caused them
-/ madam – by sitting down, my bottom has turned raven black.

In addition to these, however, the omitted reference, them, referring to the parts of his body
the speaker mentioned in the previous line, has also been provides to make the idea clear to the
readers.

Sonnet 116 by William Shakespeare was also noted with shifting. This is shown in the line below:

Love alters (does) not with his brief hours and weeks

This line speaks of one of the attributes of love: that it remains unchanged with time. Yet, to
express this, the poet employed shifting by writing the negative expression, not, after the main verb,
alter, instead of putting it before said main verb with the company of the omitted helping verb, does.
Thus, when normally stated, the line would read: Love does not alter with his brief hours and weeks.

The use of shifting was also identified in the poem, The Elf King. The line that follow illustrate it:

Who is it that rider through the night and the rain?

A father it is; he is riding amain - - -
His son he is holding close in his arm
To shield him from cold, to keep him from harm.

From these lines, the complement of the verb, a father, which is supposed to come after it tis
shifted to the beginning of the sentence, just before the subject when it should also follow the verb.
Hence, when normally stated, the lines would read: It is a father; he is riding amain --/ He is holding
close his son in his arm.

Through the use of shifting in his part of the poem, the lines are made to appear poetic and
easier understood. This is so especially because the lines, being the lines of the first stanza of the poem,
introduce the two of the three persons in the poem: a father and his son. Hence, a picture of the father
riding in his horse and holding close his son in his arms can be visualized.

Another poem where shifting was found is the poem by a German poet, The Lorelie. This is
particularlt noted in the followed stanza:

I know (do) not when it rises,

This thought so full of woe;
But a tale of times departed
Haunts me, and it will not go.
 This stanza introduces the tragic story about the Lorelie and to achieve a poetic effect in the
lines, the writer used shifting. In the first line, for example, the mina verb, know, appears before the
negation, not, when it should come after the latter. Moreover, one can note that the auxiliary verb, do,
was omitted. Hence, the line would read: I do not know when it rises.

Another shifting can be noted in the third line. Here, the participle, departed, which modifies
tales of times is best before said noun phrase. Hence, the line would read: But a departed tale of times/
Haunts me and will not go

The poem, Life is a Dream was also found with shifting. The following lines exemplify this:

A dream it was in which I found myself.

And you that hail me now, then hailed me king,
In a brave palace that was all my own,
Within, and all without it, mine; until
Drunk with excess of majesty and pride,
Methought I towered so big and swelled so wide
That of myself I burst the glittering bubble
Which my ambition had about me blown
And all again was darkness.

The speaker in this part of the poem recalls how he had become a king; (He feels like it was only
a dream where he became one) that through the people’s uprising against the previous kingdom, ha was
hailed one; and that as a king, he become proud with his possessions and power. Yet, he feels that
everything that happen to him seemed like only a dream.

To achieve poetic effect in the lines and to emphasize the interchanging ideas od dreaming and
walking, the writer modified the natural ordering of the words in lines 7 and 8 above.

In line 7, three words were interchanged in position. The pronoun, myself, is supposed to follow
the verb, burst, as the object of the verb and the preposition, of, before the pronoun, myself, is
supposed to introduce the direct object of the verb, the glittering bubble. Hence, the line would read:
That I burst myself of the glittering bubble. Moreover, it can be noted in the eighth line that the main
form of the verb, blown, is placed far from its auxiliary verb, had. It should, however, precede the latter
to form the past participial structure of the verb. Hence, when reordered, the line would read: Which
my ambition had blown about me.

Lastly, shifting was found in the poem, In the Orchard. The following line of the poem carries
words that were interchanged from their usual word order:

Rose and white, the apple blossom.

Rose and white are single-word adjectives that describe the apple blossom, so they should be
placed between the determiner, the , and , apple blossom that they modify. The line would, therefore,
be read as: The rose and white apple blossom. Said feature was used in this line to provide rhyme and
rhythm in and among the lines.
 Inversion. Another grammatical feature found in the poems analyzed is inversion. This is a
feature in lines where the verb comes before its subject. Four poems were found with this feature.
Analyses showed that writers use this feature to achieve various effects.

In the poem. Telephone Conversion, for example, inversion was used to reinforce an idea. The
following lines support this:

Considerate she was, various the emphasis –

“Are you Dark or Very Light?” Revelation came

It can be inferred from these lines that there are two persons involved in this conversation: a
she and a you.
Previous lines, however, explain that she is a specifically white landlady and the you is an African and
that it is the African who narrates his telephone conversation with the landlady.

Prior to this part of the poem, the landlady had once asked the African, “how dark?” after the
latter admitted that he was an African. Then, she followed this up with another question ”Are you light
or very dark?” With this question, the African was undoubtedly shamed but he pushed to beg for
simplification and hoped the question he heard was only a jest. The line above prove that the landlady
was really humiliating him.

The use of inversion in the above lines can be very well noted in the line where the main verb,
considerate, comes before the subject, she, when normally, it follows its auxiliary verb, was. In addition
to this, shifting is noted in the same line. The gerund phrase, varying the emphasis, could modify only
the subjects, she, hence, it should be placed before it. Thus, the line would read: Varying the emphasis,
she was considerate.

At this point, inversion helps reinforce how ‘considerate’ the landlady was to the African with
her question: “Are you light or very dark?” and repeated it by rephrasing it: “Are you dark or very light?”
Or can be recalled that earlier in this chapter, the above mentioned lines also employed irony which was
used to emphasize that the landlady was not really considerate but rude and unkind. This same idea is
further intensified by the use of the above – explained inversion.

Sonnet 116 was also found out with inversion. The line below beat it:

Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks

But bears it out even to the edge of doom

Before the inversion that occurs in the second line, one may also notice that there is shifting in
the words, alter and not, and an auxiliary verb, does, is needed to complete the whole predicate. The
use of inversion follows in the second line with the verb, bears, coming before the subject, it.

These lines picture the constancy of love, that it remains unchanged even until the end of line.
Inversion then was clearly employed to stress such an attribute of love by giving emphasis on the
positive connotations of the verb, bears coming before the subject, it, which it turn refers to love.
 Another poem found to have employed inversion is The Lorelie. The stanza that follows contains
two instances of inversion.

And yonder sits a maiden

The fairest of the fair:
With gold is her garment glittering,
As she combs her golden hair;

The first instance on the use of inversion is noted in the first line. As the diagram shows, the
subject, a maiden, is interchanged in position with the verb, sits. The second instance is found in the
third line where the verb, is, comes before the subjects, her garment. However, one can also observe
that these inversions are baked with shiftings. Line 2, for example, is supposed to follow the subjects,
maiden, which it modifies. Moreover, the prepositional phrase, with gold, is also supposed to be after
the verb, glittering, because it is part of the whole verb phrase. Thus, when rephrase, the lines would
read: And yonder a maiden, that fairest of the fair sits/ Her garment is glittering with gold/ As she combs
her golden hair.

Inversion, therefor, in this part of the poem was used to achieve a rhyming and rhythmical effect
in and among the lines. This is particularly so that maiden is made to rhyme with glittering and hair with
fair. Add to this the music created in the sounds of the syllables as they are written in the poem.

Lastly, said grammatical feature was also marked in the poem, Life is a Dream. The lines below
contain this feature:

So fairly carry the full cup, so well

Disordered insolence and passion quell,
That there be nothing after to upbraid
Dreamer or doer in the part he played;

As the diagrammed the line shows, the verb, quell, is supposed to begin the sentence with an
implied subject, you. Because the poem deals with life being likened to dream, this quoted part of the
poem provides a reminder to everyone: that whether in walking or dreaming, one must perform well his
part so that he will not regret anything in the end. Again, inversion was used here to achieve a poetic
effect in the words: well, quell and upbraid, played.

Omissions. Nine poems contained omissions which are mostly connectives or determiners and
verbs. In the poem, Telephone Conversation, for example, the determiner, the, and the verb, looked, are
omitted in the following lines:

The price seemed reasonable, (the) location (looked)

Indifferent. The landlord swore she lived
Off premises. Nothing remained

The reader may notice that the lines are cut and short. The omissions, therefore, may have been
employed to shorten the lines which reflect the kind of telephone conversation described in the poem.
 Another example of omission was found in the following lines of Anxiety of a Young Lady to Get
Married.

Ripe, the plums fall from the bough:

Only seven-tenths (are) left there now!

Here, the linking verb, are, is omitted probably to maintain a close eight syllable count in each of
the lines as the rest of the lines of the poem have eight syllables in each of the first two line of the of
the three stanzes and seven in each of the last two lines.

The The Dead Man Ariseth and Singeth a Hymn to the Sun was also noted with
omissions. In the lines below, the verb, is, was omitted.

Thine image (is) flashing on the bright celestial river.

Maker of Time, thyself (is) beyond all Time

The omissions could have been done for the poet to keep the twelve or thirteen- syllable-count
in each line of the poem. Also, the verb, is, in the second line could have been probably omitted to
maintain a parallel structure in Maker of Time and Thyself beyond all Time.

In When You are Old, omissions were seen in the lines:

How many loved your moments of glad grace,

And (how many) loved your beauty with love false and true;
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face.

One may notice that the phrase, how many, to begin the question in the second line, omitted.
This could have been so to achieve emphasis on how many and who loved the person this poem is
addressed.

The following lines of Sonnet 116 were also marked with omissions:

Love alters (does) not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom,
If this be (an) error and upon me proved,
I (would have) never (made a) writ (of it), nor no man (has)
ever loved

The auxiliary verb, does, to complete the whole verb phrase, does not, in line 1 was omitted. In
the third line, the article, an, to point out to the word, error, was also omitted. Then in the last line, one
can notice through the illustration that a number of words have been omitted. One has to remember
through the illustration that a number of words have been omitted. One has to remember thought that
the poem is a sonnet and these lines are the last four lines of the poem. It is, therefore, understandable
why the poet omitted these words since a sonnet is a poem of fourteen iambic pentameter lines. Hence,
to keep this, the poet employed omissions.
 Emily Dickinson’s Because I Could not Stop For Death was also found laden with omissions. The
following stanzas exemplify this:

We passed (before) the School, where children strove

At Recess – in his ring –
We passed (before) the Fields of Gazing Grain –
We Passed (before) the Setting Sun –

Or rather – He passed (before) Us –

The Dows drew quivering and chill –
For (I was wearing) only Gossamer, my Gown –
My Tippet – (and my) only Tulle –

One can see that the preposition, before, is omitted three times in the first stanza above. This
prepositional instead of another one like, by, is more likely to have been omitted to maintain
consistency in what the writer used in the following fifth line of the poem:

We passed (before) a House that seemed

A Swelling of the Ground –
The Roof was Scarcely visible–
The Cornice – in the Ground –

Then, said preposition is again omitted in the first line of the second stanza. Following is another
omission in the third line: the subject and the verb. Likewise, the last stanza of the poem written below
bears two other instances of omission.

Since then – ‘tis centuries (have passed) – and yet

(A lifetime) Feels shorter than the Day
I first surmised the Horses’ Heads
Were toward Eternity

Generally, all the omissions described above have been employed to make every word in the
lines count with exact meaning. Another is that the brevity of the lines achieved through the use of
omissions help express the brevity of life and the closeness of death to anyone.

The second and the last poem with omissions is the Fairy King. Here, the conjunction, and, is
omitted in three separate lines of the poem. Below are the lines:

Who is it that rides through the night and the rain?

A father it is; he is riding amain ---
His son he is holding close in his arm
To shield him from cold, (and) to keep him from harm.

“Beautiful boy, come (and) go with me ---

Many a game I’ll play with thee;
 One many notice that said conjunction is omitted in the fourth line to keep the two parts of the
line parallel with each other to achieve a poetic effect. The same is true in the next line. In addition to
this, however, the conjunction is omitted to make the verbs, come and go, strong as they are because
the Elf King, being the one speaking in this line is so desirous of the boy’s life.

Lastly, omission as a grammatical feature was seen in the poem, In the Orchard. This is
illustrated in the lines below:

In the sunny orchard closes;

While the warsblers sing and swing,
Care (does) not whether (the) blustering Autumn
(It) Break the promises of spring! (or)
Rose and white, the apple blossom
(It) Hides you from the sultry sky –
Let it flutter, blown and scatter’d,
On the meadows by –and –by!

This stanza speaks of the arrival of Autumn in the orchard after the summer season. It explains
what comes with it and what awaits those in the orchard. One may note, however, that aside from
omissions, the poet employed several other grammatical features like shifting and inversions. This is
because all these three features help emphasize the destruction that Autumn brings to the orchard.
Hence, some words and lines were interchanged in position while they appear distorted and broken.

In terms of omissions, therefore, one finds that the auxiliary verb, does, in the third line is
omitted and so is the determiner, the, to make definite the mention of the blustering autumn. Then in
the fourth and sixth line, the pronoun-subject, it, is also missed. Add to these is the conjunction, or,
omitted at the end of the fourth line and is supposed to connect this line to the sixth line that should
follow it. Hence, when the omitted words are provided and the shifting and inversions reordered, the
lines would read: In the sunny orchard closes. The blustering Autumn does not care whether/ It breaks
the promises of spring! Or/ It hides you from the sultry sky -/Or, it lets the rose and white apple blossom
flutter, blown and scattered /On the meadows by – and – by.

Catalogue. This grammatical feature is employed when several items that refer to a topic are
enumerated in the poem. Of the 15 poems analyzed, only one was found with this feature. This is poem
2 from The Gitanjali. This is explained in all the lines of the poem below:

Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high;
Where knowledge id free;
Where the world has been broken up into fragments by narrow
domestic walls;
Where words come out from the depth of truth;
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection;
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way
Into the dreary desert sand of dead habit;
Where the mind is led forward by thee into ever-widening thought
And action –
Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.
 It is noted that all the first seven line of the poem are specific items that refer to freedom in the
last line. These are definite prayers about freedom that the speaker wants his country to enjoy.

Caption. This grammatical feature where several items bound solely by the title are enumerated
to create different and separate images was found in only one poem. This is Carl Sandburg’s Prayer of
Steel. One easily agrees that the lines below describe a number of specific items that are actually the
prayers of steel. This feature was probably used to make each line point back to the title, thus, creating
unity in the presentation of the poem’s subject: that of the prayers of steel

Prayers of Steel

Lay me on an Anvil, O god.

Beat me and hammer me into a crowbar.
Let me pry loose old walls.
Let me lift and loosen old foundations.

Lay me on an Anvil, O god.

Beat me and Hammer me into a steel spike.
Drive me into the girders that hold a skyscraper together
Take red-hot rivets and fasten me into the central girders.
Let me be the great nail holding a skyscraper through the blue
Night into star.

Apposition. Apposition is a grammatical construction where two nouns are in juxtaposition with
each other. Only the poem, Telephone Conversation, was found with this feature. This is evidenced in
the line below:

The price seems reasonable, location

Indifferent. The landlady swore she lived
Off premises. Nothing remained
But self-confession. “Madam,”I warned,
“I have a wasted journey – I am African.’
Silence. Silenced transmission of
Pressurized good-breeding.

Apposition is used in this part where the phrase, Silenced transmission of the pressurized good
breeding is juxtaposed with Silence in the first part of the same line. This silence or silenced transmission
of pressurized good breeding refers to that attitude of the landlady where she, being white and
“educated” felt uncomfortable with the presence of the African applicant. Apposition, therefore, was
used to reinforce the atmosphere of discrimination in the poem.

Parallelism. In this study, parallelism or the repetition of phonological structural or lexical

features was noted in all the poems analyzed. Like imagery parallelism was found to be an essential
feature of poetry. Mendoza (1995) stressed that the repetition of a sound, a word, a phrase or a whole
line carries more force and is applied to make the idea clearer.
 For instance, because steel in the poem, Prayers of Steel that appears below, prays that it be
turned into an instrument of destruction and an instrument of construction, the repetition of the s
sound in steel, spike and skyscraper helps create an image of a sharply pointed material capable of
destroying and construction. Likewise, the l sound in let – loose, old – walls, and let – life-loosen reflects
a sense of energy to ruin a structure while the r sound red and rivets signifies aggressiveness and power.

Lay me on an Anvil, O god.

Beat me and hammer me into a crowbar.
Let me pry loose old walls.
Let me lift and loosen old foundations.

Lay me on an Anvil, O god.

Beat me and Hammer me into a steel spike.
Drive me into the girders that hold a skyscraper together
Take red-hot rivets and fasten me into the central girders.
Let me be the great nail holding a skyscraper through the blue
Night into star.

Obviously, the lines of both stanzas of the poem do show structural parallelism. One may notice
that each line is a very distinct prayer. All except the last line start with the present form of the verb,
followed by the object, me: Lay me/ Beat me/ Let me/ Drive me. Moreover, the first two lines of both
stanzas perfectly parallel each other. Both begin with the same line and both second lines show similar
word pattern which separate at the end, that last word, being the instrument for each particular
function described in the next lines: Beat me and hammer me into a crowbar vis a vis Beat me and
hammer me into a steel spike, Also, repetition occurs in: Let me pry loose old walls/ Let me loosen old
foundation and Drive me into the girders that hold a skyscraper together/ Take red-hot-rivets and fasten
me into central girders.

At this point, one may already recognize how important and how effective these line
parallelisms are in the exposition of the prayers of steel. With the use of this grammatical feature, is also
able to distinguish the two separate instruments the steel desires to be turned into so that it could
destroy old things and later, it could be used to hold a modern structure as the skyscraper.

Another example of the impressive function of parallelism is seen in the poem, Equality. The
lines of the poem below illustrate this:

You declare you see me dimly

Through a glass which will not shine,
Though I stand before you boldly,
Trim in rank and marking time.

You do own to hear me faintly

As a whisper out of range,
 while my drums beat out the message
and the rhythms never change.

Equality, and I will be free.

Equality, and I will be free.

You announce my ways are wanton,

That I fly from man to man,
But if I’m just a shadow to you,
Could you ever understand?

We have lived a painful history

we know the shameful past,
but I keep on marching forward,
and you keep on coming last.

Equality, and I will be free.

Equality, and I will be free.

Take the blinders from your vision,

Take the paddle from your ears,
and confess you’ve hear me crying
and admit you’ve seen my tears

Hear the tempo so compelling,

Hear the blood throb in my veins.
Yes, my drums are beating nightly,
And the rhythms never change.

Equality, and I will be free.

Equality, and I will be free.

It can be easily identified that this poem is loaded with phonological parallelism. Alliteration can
be noted in declare – dimly (line 1), before – boldly (line 3), trim – time (line 4), ways – wanton (line 11),
fly – from (line 12), and confess – crying (line 13); assonance in see – me (line 1), do – to (line 3) and but
– just (line 13). Moreover, the richness in structural parallelism in this poem cannot be ignored. The
over-all structure is perfect that each two consecutive stanzas are composed of four lines (quatrains)
that are parallel with each other. Then, there is the two-line refrain, which occurs every after two
quatrains. It is also very interesting to note that the first, second and fourth stanzas are very similar in
structure; every second line comes as a clause, each third line begins with a contrastive connector and
each fourth line highlights the message of the stanzas.

Another interesting parallelism is seen in stanza 5 where the first and second lines start with the
subject, we, and it followed by the complete predicate. Then, lines 3 and 4 start with separate
conjunctions to introduce the idea that follows it. Lastly, the lines of stanzas 7 and 8 also parallel each
other.
 Therefore, parallelism between and among the lines helps reinforce the subject as expressed in
the title. Every two quatrains is followed by a two-lines refrain bearing one message: Equality and I will
be free. The same message is what the speaker wants to say in: my drums are beating and the rhythms
never change. Said two-line refrain is further intensified by the reputation of the lines: while my drums
beat out the message/ and rhythms never change. Indeed, the rhythms never change as the two-line
refrain also concludes the poem and echoes the same message; that of equality.