ok... not to burden you guys with all these poems... but i can NOT alalyze poems at all... so please help!!
The Need of Being Versed in Things
The house had gone to bring again
To the midnight sky a sunset glow.
Now the chimney was all of the house that stood,
Like a pistil after the petals go.

The barn opposed across the way,
That would have joined the house in flame
Had it been the will of the wind, was left
To bear forsaken the place's name.

No more it opened with all one end
For teams that came by the stony road
To drum on the floor with scurrying hoofs
And brush the mow with the summer load.

The birds that came to it through the air
At broken windows flew out and in,
Their murmur more like the sigh we sigh
From too much dwelling on what has been.

Yet for them the lilac renewed its leaf,
And the aged elm, though touched with fire;
And the dry pump flung up an awkward arm:
And the fence post carried a strand of wire.

For them there was really nothing sad.
But though they rejoiced in the nest they kept,
One had to be versed in country things
Not to believe the phoebes wept.

For Once, Then Something
Others taught me with having knelt at well-curbs
Always wrong to the light, so never seeing
Deeper down in the well than where the water
Gives me back in a shining surface picture
Me myself in the summer heaven godlike
Looking out of a wreath of fern and cloud puffs.
Once, when trying with chin against a well-curb,
I discerned, as I thought, beyond the picture,
Through the picture, a something white, uncertain,
Something more of the depths--and then I lost it.
Water came to rebuke the too clear water.
One drop fell from a fern, and lo, a ripple
Shook whatever it was lay there at bottom,
Blurred it, blotted it out. What was that whiteness?
Truth? A pebble of quartz? For once, then, something.

Love And A Question
A stranger came to the door at eve,
And he spoke the bridegroom fair.
He bore a green-white stick in his hand,
And, for all burden, care.
He asked with the eyes more than the lips
For a shelter for the night,
And he turned and looked at the road afar
Without a window light.

The bridegroom came forth into the porch
With, 'Let us look at the sky,
And question what of the night to be,
Stranger, you and I.'
The woodbine leaves littered the yard,
The woodbine berries were blue,
Autumn, yes, winter was in the wind;
'Stranger, I wish I knew.'

Within, the bride in the dusk alone
Bent over the open fire,
Her face rose-red with the glowing coal
And the thought of the heart's desire.

The bridegroom looked at the weary road,
Yet saw but her within,
And wished her heart in a case of gold
And pinned with a silver pin.

The bridegroom thought it little to give
A dole of bread, a purse,
A heartfelt prayer for the poor of God,
Or for the rich a curse;

But whether or not a man was asked
To mar the love of two
By harboring woe in the bridal house,
The bridegroom wished he knew.

Reluctance
Through the fields and the woods
And over the walls I have wended;
I have climbed the hills of view
And looked at the world, and descended;
I have come by the highway home,
And lo, it is ended.
The leaves are all dead on the ground,
Save those that the oak is keeping
To ravel them one by one
And let them go scraping and creeping
Out over the crusted snow,
When others are sleeping.
And the dead leaves lie huddled and still,
No longer blown hither and thither;
The last long aster is gone;
The flowers of the witch-hazel wither;
The heart is still aching to seek,
But the feet question 'Whither?'
Ah, when to the heart of man
Was it ever less than a treason
To go with the drift of things,
To yield with a grace to reason,
And bow and accept the end
Of a love or a season?

THANKS SOOOOOOO MUCH!

Mia, take each poem and consider these topics:

1. Theme
2. Language
3. Rhyme
4. Meter
5. Meaning
6. Feeling/Connotation


Les

I'd suggest reading a poem, thinking/analyzing it and then reading it again. Always works for me.
Poetry isn't easy, and if you find your own way of understanding it, writing about it will be far far easier.

For Once, Then Something is about a man looking at himself in the reflection of a well, almost narcissitically, at the surface. And then one day, he looks deeper, and finds some sort of epiphany or realisation which is suddenly cut short by a drop of water.

Thats all I'm going to say.

ta

wow thanks. i hope you don't mind if i tell you what i think a certian poem means and then send it to you and see what you think of it...

post it here, so we can all think along.

You should definitely post it here, more discussion = more ideas fella!
As for sending it to me, if you want to, go for it.

ta

ok, well the poem 'reluctane' i got that he is comming back from a a long journey and it is now winter and he is near home and he is almost reluctant about going back home because he has seen so much of the world. and then he excepts that he is home and goes home.... i dunno if that's right. please tell me if i missed out on anything of if what i just wrote it totaly wrong. thanks

Yes, that's how I see it- he's reluctant to have the experience end. However, things are ending all around him- and he realizes that things have to end, but we don't have to like it.

pam

hey i need help amalyzing Robert Frosts poem "on going unnoticed" could you help me with that one?

As vain to raise a voice as a sigh
In the tumult of free leaves on high.
What are you in the shadow of trees
Engaged up there with the light and breeze?

Less than the coral-root you know
That is content with the daylight low,
And has no leaves at all of its own;
Whose spotted flowers hang meanly down.

You grasp the bark by a rugged pleat,
And look up small from the forest's feet.
The only leaf it drops goes wide,
Your name not written on either side.

You linger your little hour and are gone,
And still the wood sweep leafily on,
Not even missing the coral-root flower
You took as a trophy of the hour.



Can't see the forest for the trees? Well, the trees can't see you either, being too much involved with their own important endeavors, that is.

ok, for the poem 'love and a question' i think that a bridegroom and a bride are just newly wed at that a stranger comes and wantes a place to stay for he night. the bridegroom is doesn't want to let the stranger come in the house because of the fear of the stranger doing something to his new wife. so i think that tis poem is about fear... please tell me if riht or wrong or if i missed out anything... thanks!

i need help analysing robert frosts poem, Road not taken ... could u help.. please