Rhythm & Rhyme

While both prose and poetry may have rhythm and rhyme, they are most apparent in poetry. Rhythm is a sound pattern based on stressed and unstressed syllables. Rhyme is two or more words that have a corresponding sound, especially at the end of the word, as in “light” and “night.” Poets often place rhyming words at the end of a line, but they may also place them in the middle of a line, which is called interior rhyme.

Sonnet 130

My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun     Coral is far more red than her lips’ red     If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;     If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.     I have seen roses damask’d, red and white,    …

The Lobster Quadrille

Lewis Carroll’s Alice Adventures in Wonderland is the story of a young girl, Alice, who finds a very strange world full of very strange characters. This passage is a song that is sung by the Mock Turtle as it dances with the Gryphon. They dance “The Lobster Quadrille,” a dance…

Foreign Lands

Up into the cherry tree Who should climb but little me? I held the trunk with both my hands And looked abroad on foreign lands. I saw the next door garden lie, Adorned with flowers, before my eye, And many pleasant places more That I had never seen before. I…

The New Colossus

This poem appears at the base of the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor. The opening is comparing the statue to the ancient Colossus of Rhodes. ——————————————- Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame, With conquering limbs astride from land to land; Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates…

The Land of Counterpane

A counterpane is a quilt or bedspread. ———————————————- When I was sick and lay a-bed, I had two pillows at my head, And all my toys beside me lay To keep me happy all the day. And sometimes for an hour or so I watched my leaden soldiers go, With…

The Moon

The moon has a face like the clock in the hall; She shines on thieves on the garden wall, On streets and fields and harbor quays, And birdies asleep in the forks of the trees. The squalling cat and the squeaking mouse, The howling dog by the door of the…

Bed in Summer

In winter I get up at night And dress by yellow candle-light. In summer, quite the other way, I have to go to bed by day. I have to go to bed and see The birds still hopping on the tree, Or hear the grown-up people’s feet Still going past…

An Enigma

Edgar Allan Poe wrote several poems that contained a secret. An Enigma is one of those poems. Enigma means puzzle or mystery. There is a woman’s name hidden in the text. To find her name, use the first letter of the first line, the second letter of the second line,…