1) The Embankment
In a flash of gold heels on the hard pavement.
Now see I
That warmth’s the very stuff of poesy.
Oh, God, make small
The old star-eaten blanket of the sky,
That I may fold it round me and in comfort lie.
First, a short paraphrase of the poem:
on London’s Embankment, a ‘fallen gentleman’ reflects on his past and how he
found pleasure in worldly social activities (the ‘finesse of fiddles’
suggesting musical gatherings, such as dances) and beautiful women – probably
(given the ‘flash of gold heels on
the hard pavement‘) courtesans or prostitutes. But now, down on his
luck and most probably sleeping rough on
the streets, he realises that warmth is what really matters and is what poets
should be singing about. The poem then ends with a heartfelt entreaty to the
heavens, with the poem’s speaker beseeching God to make a blanket of the starry
sky so that the speaker’s wish for warmth might be granted. The internal rhymes
of the poem, running from the poem’s subtitle or description to the last line –
those of cold, gold, old, fold – help to form a chain that unites the central
images of the poem.
2)
Darkness.
I stop to watch a star shine in the boghole –
A star no longer, but a silver ribbon of light.
I look at it, and pass on.
Poet says that
Darkness is itself symbolic. 'Star' is a symbol of prosperity and brightness
means that there was some goodness in civilization but now it's all dark. As we know that darkness has many meaning but here in this
poem darkness has one meaning that is illusion poet experiences at one dark
night. That when he passes from the street he found that star is in boghole.
But when he goes near to it the reality reveals that it is not the star but a
silver ribbon that is glitter when he was far from it.
3)
'Image'-
Edward Storer
Forsaken lovers,
Burning to a chaste white moon
Upon strange Pyres of loneliness and
drought.
Forsaken lovers are portrayed here by
poet. The lovers are aburning with this so called Victorian good thoughts and
belife. Here, poet says that the lovers are being burned by white moon.
4)
"In a station of the Metro"- Ezra Pound
The apparition of these faces in the
Crowd;
Petals
on a wet, black bough
The title of the poem itself gives an
image of the mechanism of life. The title suggest the dual Victorian and modern
age machinery is came in Victorian age but the poem belongs from the modern
age.It talks about the monotonus life of modern people like a living
dead.
The lifeless people going for the
daily routine. The crowd of people are like living dead. Going for work without
any enthusiasm. 'Petals' is used as metaphor for people and 'black bough' for a
culture of living dead.
5)
The pool- Hild Doolittle
Are you alive?
I touch you
You quiver trembling like a seafish
I cover you with my net
What are you banded one?
In the poem, The Pool," Doolittle
speaks intimately about an issue that she faced through her life.
The pool is a modern concept even to
take it as title of the poem gives the modern touch to the poem. Even poet has
used other metaphors like net, banded one ,sea-fish etc.
6)
"Insouciance" – Richard Aldington
In and out of the dreary trenches
Trudging cheerily under the stars
I make for myself little poems
Delicate as a flock of doves
They fly away like whitewinged
Doves.
In this poem, poet compares his poems
with dove. Here the words like 'Trudging' and 'cheerily' gives contrasting
meaning. These words give the image of life where we are doing many things
unwillingly. Poems can not fly but here poet says he has made poems that can
fly away like white winged doves. It looks he want to be free.
7)
Morning at the Window- T. S. Eliot
They are rattling breakfast plates in basement kitchens,
And along the trampled edges of the street
I am aware of the damp souls of housemaid
Sprouting
despondently at area gates.
The brown waves of fog toss up to me
Twisted faces from the bottom of the street,
And tear from a passerby with muddy skirts
An aimless smile that hovers in the air
And
vanishes along the level of the roofs.
Morning
at the Window is an imagist poem that presents an image of poverty. The picture
is that of a slum where people lead miserable lives. The speaker is at the
window. He may be a visitor of a certain house in the area where poor people
live. The images that come to his eyes are 'object correlatives' or objects
corresponding certain ideas and emotions in the poet's and the our mind also.mind.
8)
The Red
Wheelbarrow- William Carlos Williams
so much depends
upon
a red wheel
barrow
glazed with rain
water
beside the white
chicken.
The poem describes a red wheelbarrow
in the rain. But it is about so much more! Williams wrote it in the amount of
time it takes to read the poem. The Red wheel barrow - two sides of life ,
negative & positive reflects here. - Hardships of life turns to reliefs. -
Dying stage is the ultimate way of living life throughout.
9)
Anecdote of the Jar- Wallace Stevens
I placed a jar in Tennessee,
And round it was, upon a hill.
It made the slovenly wilderness
Surround that hill.
The wilderness rose up to it,
And sprawled around, no longer wild.
The jar was round upon the ground
And tall and of a port in air.
It took dominion everywhere.
The jar was gray and bare.
It did not give of bird or bush,
Like
nothing else in Tennessee.
This
poem solves the riddle by recognizing the unique differences between art and
nature: art may sometimes be more beautiful than nature but it cannot be as
creative as the nature. So, The
poem is all about Jar. the jar is out of place in Tennessee, and there are
things that the wilderness can do, like grow and breed, that the jar can't.
10)
'L(a-E.E commuings)
It is a great and intelligent poem by its disposition.
The title of the poem “A leaf falls on loneliness” shows itself the state of
being alone and solitude. Loneliness represents the separation from the entire
world. So here we can say that this poem represents the state of separation
from the entire world and also represents the state of self centeredness.
