"Dover Beach"

                                           Dover Beach  
                                          Matthew Arnold (1822-1888)

THE SEA is calm to-night,
The tide is full, the moon lies fair
Upon the straits;—on the French coast the light
Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand,
Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay.	5
Come to the window, sweet is the night air!
Only, from the long line of spray
Where the sea meets the moon-blanch’d land,
Listen! you hear the grating roar
Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling,	10
At their return, up the high strand.
Begin, and cease, and then again begin,
With tremulous cadence slow, and bring
The eternal note of sadness in.
Sophocles long ago	15
Heard it on the Ægæan, and it brought
Into his mind the turbid ebb and flow
Of human misery; we
Find also in the sound a thought,
Hearing it by this distant northern sea.	20
The Sea of Faith
Was once, too, at the full, and round earth’s shore
Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furl’d.
But now I only hear
Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar,	25
Retreating, to the breath
Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear
And naked shingles of the world.
Ah, love, let us be true
To one another! for the world, which seems	30
To lie before us like a land of dreams,
So various, so beautiful, so new,
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;
And we are here as on a darkling plain	35
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night.
 	     

After Reading Several More Poems, We Will Be Moving into Drama

from As You Like It 
JAQUES:
All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players:
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts . . .

Additional Sonnets by Donne, and Milton

                 

Death Be Not Proud  John Donne (1572-1631)

DEATH be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadfull, for, thou art not so,
For, those, whom thou think'st, thou dost overthrow,
Die not, poore death, nor yet canst thou kill me.
From rest and sleepe, which but thy pictures bee,	5
Much pleasure, then from thee, much more must flow,
And soonest our best men with thee doe goe,
Rest of their bones, and soules deliverie.
Thou art slave to Fate, Chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poyson, warre, and sicknesse dwell,	10
And poppie, or charmes can make us sleepe as well,
And better then thy stroake; why swell'st thou then;
One short sleepe past, wee wake eternally,
And death shall be no more; death, thou shalt die.

On His Blindness John Milton  (1608–1674)

WHEN I consider how my light is spent
E're half my days, in this dark world and wide,
And that one Talent which is death to hide,
Lodg'd with me useless, though my Soul more bent
To serve therewith my Maker, and present	5
My true account, least he returning chide,
Doth God exact day-labour, light deny'd,
I fondly ask; But patience to prevent
That murmur, soon replies, God doth not need
Either man's work or his own gifts, who best	10
Bear his milde yoak, they serve him best, his State
Is Kingly. Thousands at his bidding speed
And post o're Land and Ocean without rest:
They also serve who only stand and waite.

The Marking Period's Half Over - Watch Out!

Read Blake's poem "The Sick Rose."

Here are the poems in Songs of Innocence and of Experience

Go to: http://www.everypoet.com/archive/poetry/william_blake/william_blake_contents.htm click on a title and read the poem. Have Fun! Songs of Innocence:

Introduction The Shepherd The Echoing Green The Lamb The Little Black Boy The Blossom The Chimney-Sweeper The Little Boy Lost The Little Boy FoundLaughing Song A Cradle Song The Divine Image Holy Thursday Night Spring Nurse's Song Infant Joy A Dream On Another's Sorrow

Songs of Experience:

Introduction Earth's Answer The Clod and the Pebble Holy Thursday The Little Girl Lost The Little Girl Found The Chimney-Sweeper Nurse's Song The Sick Rose The Fly The Angel The Tyger My Pretty Rose-Tree Ah, Sunflower The Lily The Garden of Love The Little Vagabond London The Human Abstract Infant Sorrow A Poison Tree A Little Boy Lost A Little Girl Lost A Divine Image A Cradle Song The Schoolboy To Tirzah The Voice of the Ancient Bard

A Modern Poet's Response to "To His Coy Mistress"

To You, Andrew Marvell

   Archibald MacLeish (1892-1982)

And here face down beneath the sun   

And here upon earth’s noonward height   

To feel the always coming on

The always rising of the night:

To feel creep up the curving east   

The earthy chill of dusk and slow   

Upon those under lands the vast   

And ever climbing shadow grow

And strange at Ecbatan the trees   

Take leaf by leaf the evening strange   

The flooding dark about their knees   

The mountains over Persia change

And now at Kermanshah the gate   

Dark empty and the withered grass   

And through the twilight now the late   

Few travelers in the westward pass

And Baghdad darken and the bridge   

Across the silent river gone

And through Arabia the edge

Of evening widen and steal on

And deepen on Palmyra’s street

The wheel rut in the ruined stone   

And Lebanon fade out and Crete

High through the clouds and overblown

And over Sicily the air

Still flashing with the landward gulls   

And loom and slowly disappear   

The sails above the shadowy hulls

And Spain go under and the shore   

Of Africa the gilded sand

And evening vanish and no more   

The low pale light across that land

Nor now the long light on the sea:

And here face downward in the sun   

To feel how swift how secretly

The shadow of the night comes on ...   

Homework Post

HW #1 Read, sign, fill in, and return the course contract.
HW #2 Write an essay in which you compare and contrast Spenser's "One Day I Wrote Her Name Upon the Strand" to Shakespeare's Sonnet 18. Be sure to discuss the form and the content of both poems, their rhyme schemes, and their sonnet structure. IN OTHER WORDS read, reread, annotate and comprehend the poems you are to compare and contrast, Shakespeare's Sonnet 18 and Spenser's "One Day I Wrote Her Name Upon the Strand." Discuss each poem, the language, syntax, imagery, structure, rhyme scheme, flow of thought (thesis/antithesis), tone, personae, audience(s), conventions (not Star Trek) of the genre, tone, figurative language (metaphor, simile,personification, etc.) and whatever other poetic techniques or literary devices you observe. Discuss the poem's meaning as well as its style. After writing at least a paragraph about each poem, devote the remainder of your essay to a comparing and contrasting these poems. These are only guidelines; you may generate a more innovative essay structure, so long as you accomplish what has been asked of you.
HW #3 Negation Prefixes: Go to your dictionary and find words you do not know that are negated by the following prefixes: a, an, dis, il, im, in, ir, non,and un. You have now learned the word and its antonym. Please use negated words in your writing. It makes writing more concise. Realize, however, many words have antonyms not formed by negations that are totally different words, and some words have both forms of antonyms . You may which to visit: www.synonym.com  or www.merriam-webster.com because it is much easier to remember a word if you know the word as well its opposite; the word will remain in your memory longer. Of course some words don't have antonyms.
CW: Write the antithesis of Sonnet 130.
HW #4 Read,then reread the posted Marvell, Herrick, and Williams poetry. Read what your classmates have written then enter the discussion of this poetry on the class blog.
HW #5 Write a three to five paragraph essay in which you compare and contrast two of Shakespeare's "procreation" sonnets.
HW #6 Go to the SUNY website posted on the class blog and examine what the SUNY system is all about. Zoom into the websites of individual colleges or universities of interest to you. Remember, your COLLEGE PORTFOLIO is due in November.
HW #7 Write a three to five paragraph essay in which you compare Blake's 1789 "Chimney Sweeper" to his 1794 "Chimney Sweeper" poems.(This was recently
on an A.P.Exam.) Please consider using the historical background information that is posted on the blog.
HW #8 Read and annotate, as you were instructed in class, the essay given to you in class,"Shooting An Elephant" by George Orwell. Blog about it.
HW #9 Choose a book and a reading partner by this coming Monday.
CW: After the essay you annotated is returned to you, answer the questions written on the board, and posted on your class blog.
For now, THAT'S ALL FOLKS. Please advise me if I omitted something.www.synonym.com