POETRY: English II

To an Athlete Dying Young

BY A. E. HOUSMAN
The time you won your town the race
We chaired you through the market-place;
Man and boy stood cheering by,
And home we brought you shoulder-high.

Today, the road all runners come,

Shoulder-high we bring you home, What poetic devices are used in this
And set you at your threshold down, stanza?
Townsman of a stiller town.

Smart lad, to slip betimes away What is the theme of this

From fields where glory does not stay, poem? Explain
And early though the laurel grows
It withers quicker than the rose.

Eyes the shady night has shut

Cannot see the record cut,
And silence sounds no worse than cheers
After earth has stopped the ears.
What does this stanza mean?
Now you will not swell the rout
Of lads that wore their honours out,
Runners whom renown outran
And the name died before the man.

So set, before its echoes fade,

The fleet foot on the sill of shade,
And hold to the low lintel up
The still-defended challenge-cup.

And round that early-laurelled head

Will flock to gaze the strengthless dead,
And find unwithered on its curls
The garland briefer than a girl’s.
What is the author’s purpose?

1
 I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud
BY WILL IAM W OR DSW OR T H

I wandered lonely as a cloud

That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees, 1. Identify an example of
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze. PERSONIFICATION in this
poem.
Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance, 2. Identify the use of
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance. ALLITERATON in this poem

The waves beside them danced; but they

Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay, 3. What is the MAIN IDEA of
In such a jocund company: this poem?
I gazed—and gazed—but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie

In vacant or in pensive mood,
4. What is the THEME of this
They flash upon that inward eye poem?
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.