Poetry Identification Practice



Poetry Identification Practice

____________1. “Directions” by Mr. Oliver

See this printed sheet.

Unknown poems stalk its face.

Give them genres, please.

_____________2. “Lonely Hearts” by Wendy Cope

Can someone make my simple wish come true?

Male biker seeks female for touring fun.

Do you live in North London? Is it you?

Gay vegetarian whose friends are few,

I’m into music, Shakespeare and the sun.

Can someone make my simple wish come true?

Executive in search of something new—

Perhaps bisexual woman, arty, young.

Do you live in North London? Is it you?

Successful, straight and solvent? I am too—

Attractive Jewish lady with a son.

Can someone make my simple wish come true?

I’m Libran, inexperienced and blue—

Need slim non-smoker, under twenty-one.

Do you live in North London? Is it you?

Please write (with photo) to Box 152.

Who knows where it may lead once we’ve begun?

Can someone make my simple wish come true?

Do you live in North London? Is it you?

_____________3. Soliloquy from Hamlet

The imminent death of twenty thousand men

That for a fantasy and trick of fame

Go to their graves like beds, fight for a plot

Whereon the numbers cannot try the cause,

Which is not tomb enough and continent

To hide the slain…

______________4. “Fog” by Carl Sandburg

The fog comes

on little cat feet.

It sits looking

over harbor and city

on silent haunches

and then moves on.

_______________5. by Edward Lear

There was on Old Man who supposed,

That the street door was partially closed;

But some very large rats,

Ate his coats and his hats,

While that futile old gentleman dozed.

_______________6. (Excerpt from a longer work)

Muse, speak to me now of that resourceful man

Who wandered far and wide after ravaging

the sacred citadel of Troy. He came to see

many people’s cities, where he learned their customs,

while on the sea his spirit suffered many torments,

as he fought to save his life and lead his comrades home.

But though he wanted to, he could not rescue them—

They all died from their own stupidity, the fools.

_______________7. “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud”

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 tress,

Fluttering and dancing in the breeze…

For oft, when on my couch I lie

In vacant or in pensive mood,

They flash upon that inward eye

Which is the bliss of solitude;

And then my heart with pleasure fills,

And dances with the daffodils.

________________ 8. “_____________ to a Nightingale”

My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains

My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk,

Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains

One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk:

'Tis not through envy of thy happy lot,

But being too happy in thine happiness, -

That thou, light-winged Dryad of the trees,

In some melodious plot

Of beechen green and shadows numberless,

Singest of summer in full-throated ease.

O, for a draught of vintage! that hath been

Cool'd a long age in the deep-delved earth,

Tasting of Flora and the country green,

Dance, and Provençal song, and sunburnt mirth!

O for a beaker full of the warm South,

Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene,

With beaded bubbles winking at the brim,

And purple-stained mouth;

That I might drink, and leave the world unseen,

And with thee fade away into the forest dim: …

Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird!

No hungry generations tread thee down;

The voice I hear this passing night was heard

In ancient days by emperor and clown:

Perhaps the self-same song that found a path

Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home,

She stood in tears amid the alien corn;

The same that oft-times hath

Charm'd magic casements, opening on the foam

Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn.

Forlorn! the very word is like a bell

To toll me back from thee to my sole self!

Adieu! the fancy cannot cheat so well

As she is fam'd to do, deceiving elf.

Adieu! adieu! thy plaintive anthem fades

Past the near meadows, over the still stream,

Up the hill-side; and now 'tis buried deep

In the next valley-glades:

Was it a vision, or a waking dream?

Fled is that music: - Do I wake or sleep?

_____________9. “O Captain! My Captain!” by Walt Whitman

O Captain my Captain! our fearful trip is done,

The ship has weathered every rack, the prize we sought is won,

The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,

While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring;

But O heart! heart! heart!

O the bleeding drops of red,

Where on the deck my Captain lies,

Fallen cold and dead.

O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells;

Rise up--for you the flag is flung for you the bugle trills,

For you bouquets and ribboned wreaths for you the shores a-crowding,

For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning;

Here Captain! dear father!

This arm beneath your head!

It is some dream that on the deck,

You've fallen cold and dead.

My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still;

My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will;

The ship is anchored safe and sound, its voyage closed and done;

From fearful trip the victor ship comes in with object won;

Exult O shores, and ring O bells!

But I, with mournful tread,

Walk the deck my Captain lies,

Fallen cold and dead.

______________10.

“The Passionate Shepherd to His Love” by Christopher Marlowe

|Come live with me and be my love, |A gown made of the finest wool |

|And we will all the pleasures prove |Which from our pretty lambs we pull; |

|That valleys, groves, hills, and fields, |Fair lined slippers for the cold, |

|Woods, or steepy mountain yields. |With buckles of the purest gold; |

|And we will sit upon the rocks, |A belt of straw and ivy buds, |

|Seeing the shepherds feed their flocks, |With coral clasps and amber studs; |

|By shallow rivers to whose falls |And if these pleasures may thee move, |

|Melodious birds sing madrigals. |Come live with me, and be my love. |

|And I will make thee beds of roses |The shepherds' swains shall dance and sing |

|And a thousand fragrant poises, |For thy delight each May morning: |

|A cap of flowers, and a kirtle |If these delights thy mind may move, |

|Embroidered all with leaves of myrtle; |Then live with me and be my love. |

__________________11. “Porphyria’s Lover” by Robert Browning

The rain set early in tonight,

The sullen wind was soon awake,

It tore the elm'right-tops down for spite,

and did its worst to vex the lake:

I listened with heart fit to break.

When glided in Porphyria; straight

She shut the cold out and the storm,

And kneeled and made the cheerless grate

Blaze up, and all the cottage warm;

Which done, she rose, and from her form

Withdrew the dripping cloak and shawl,

And laid her soiled gloves by, untied

Her hat and let the damp hair fall,

And, last, she sat down by my side

And called me. When no voice replied,

She put my arm about her waist,

And made her smooth white shoulder bare,

And all her yellow hair displaced,

And, stooping, made my cheek lie there,

And spread, o'er all, her yellow hair,

Murmuring how she loved me--she

Too weak, for all her heart's endeavor,

To set its struggling passion free

From pride, and vainer ties dissever,

And give herself to me forever…

That moment she was mine, mine, fair,

Perfectly pure and good: I found

A thing to do, and all her hair

In one long yellow string I wound

Three times her little throat around,

And strangled her. No pain felt she;

I am quite sure she felt no pain.

As a shut bud that holds a bee,

I warily oped her lids: again

Laughed the blue eyes without a stain.

And I untightened next the tress

About her neck; her cheek once more

Blushed bright beneath my burning kiss:

I propped her head up as before

Only, this time my shoulder bore

Her head, which droops upon it still:

The smiling rosy little head,

So glad it has its utmost will,

That all it scorned at once is fled,

And I, its love, am gained instead!

Porphyria's love: she guessed not how

Her darling one wish would be heard.

And thus we sit together now,

And all night long we have not stirred,

And yet God has not said a word!

____________12. “Fancy in Nubibus (or the Poet in the Clouds)” by S. T. Coleridge

O! It is pleasant, with a heart at ease,

Just after sunset, or by moonlight skies,

To make the shifting clouds be what you please,

Or let the easily persuaded eyes

Own each quaint likeness issuing from the mould

Of a friend’s fancy; or with head bent low

And cheek aslant see rivers flow of gold

‘Twixt crimson banks; and then, a traveller, go

From mount to mount through Cloudland, gorgeous land!

Or list’ning to the tide, with closed sight,

Be that blind bard, who on the Chian strand

By those deep sounds possessed with inward light,

Beheld the Iliad and the Odyssee

Rise to the swelling of the voiceful sea.

___________13. “I Will Put Chaos into Fourteen Lines” by Edna St. Vincent Millay

I will put Chaos into fourteen lines

And keep him there; and let him thence escape

If he be lucky; let him twist and ape

Flood, fire, and demon—his androit designs

Will strain to nothing in the strict confines

Of this sweet Order, where, in pious rape,

I hold his essence and amorphous shape,

Till he with Order mingles and combines.

Past are the hours, the years, of our duress,

His arrogance, our awful servitude:

I have him. He is nothing more or less

Than something simple not yet understood;

I shall not even force him to confess;

Or answer. I will only make him good.

______________________14. “Lovely Joan”

A fine young man it was indeed,

He was mounted on his milk-white steed;

He rode, he rode himself all alone,

Until he came to lovely Joan.

“Good morning to you, pretty maid.”

And “Twice good morning, sir,” she said.

He gave her a wink, she rolled her eye.

Says he to himself, “I’ll be there by and by.”

“Oh don’t you think those pooks of hay

A pretty place for us to play?

So come with me like a sweet young thing

And I’ll give you my golden ring.”

Then he pulled off his ring of gold.

“My pretty little miss, do this behold.

I’d freely give it for your maidenhead.”

And her cheeks they blushed like the roses red.

“Give me that ring into my hand

And I will neither stay nor stand,

For this would do more good to me

Than twenty maidenheads,” said she.

And as he made for the pooks of hay

She leaped on his horse and tore away.

He called, he called, but it was all in vain

Young Joan she never looked back again.

She didn’t think herself quite safe,

No, not till she came to her true love’s gate.

She’s robbed him of his horse and ring,

And left him to rage in the meadows green.

____________________ 15.

Excerpt from “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Down dropt the breeze, the sails dropt down,

'Twas sad as sad could be ;

And we did speak only to break

The silence of the sea!

All in a hot and copper sky,

The bloody Sun, at noon,

Right up above the mast did stand,

No bigger than the Moon.

Day after day, day after day,

We stuck, nor breath nor motion ;

As idle as a painted ship

Upon a painted ocean.

Water, water, every where,

And all the boards did shrink ;

Water, water, every where,

Nor a drop to drink.

The very deep did rot : O Christ !

That ever this should be !

Yea, slimy things did crawl with legs

Upon the slimy sea.

___________________ 16.

“In Medias Res” by Michael McFee

His waist,

like the plot,

thickens, wedding

pants now breathtaking,

belt no longer the cinch

it once was, belly's cambium

expanding to match each birthday,

his body a wad of anonymous tissue

swung in the same centrifuge of years

that separates a house from its foundation,

undermining sidewalks grim with joggers

and loose-filled graves and families

and stars collapsing on themselves,

no preservation society capable

of plugging entropy's dike,

under the zipper's sneer

a belly hibernation-

soft, ready for

the kill.

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