POETRY ANALYSIS

Safe in their Alabaster Chambers (124)
BY EMILY DICKINSON

Safe in their Alabaster Chambers -

Untouched by Morning - 

and untouched by noon -

Sleep the meek members of the Resurrection, 

Rafter of Satin and Roof of Stone - 

Grand go the Years, 

In the Crescent above them -

Worlds scoop their Arcs - 

and Firmaments - row -

Diadems - drop -

And Doges surrender -

Soundless as Dots, 

On a Disk of Snow.

Analysis: Emily Dickinson comes to tell us how power in life may take on a major meaning but in death that power is superfluous. It is useless power for after death power no longer exists. Dickinson touches upon the things that come with death. Death bring rest from the living world. It brings peace to the soul and mind. The sleep that death places you in is only temporary for you are awakened once again for judgement day in which God may grant you the gift of living the eternal life. Even though one is dead life continues. People go on living and time continues to pass. It's a short poem but in it is a great deal of ideas about living, dying, and living again. The speaker is Dickinson herself. As far as spelling and grammar well it's a poem. Only one period was used to close her ideas but sub ideas are separated by dashes. 

 

To His Coy Mistress
by Andrew Marvell
Had we but world enough, and time, This coyness, Lady, were no crime. We would sit down and think which way To walk and pass our long love's day. Thou by the Indian Ganges' side Shouldst rubies find: I by the tide Of Humber would complain. I would Love you ten years before the Flood, And you should, if you please, refuse Till the conversion of the Jews. My vegetable love should grow Vaster than empires, and more slow; An hundred years should go to praise Thine eyes and on thy forehead gaze; Two hundred to adore each breast; But thirty thousand to the rest; An age at least to every part, And the last age should show your heart; For, Lady, you deserve this state, Nor would I love at lower rate. But at my back I always hear Time's wingèd chariot hurrying near; And yonder all before us lie Deserts of vast eternity. Thy beauty shall no more be found, Nor, in thy marble vault, shall sound My echoing song: then worms shall try That long preserved virginity, And your quaint honour turn to dust, And into ashes all my lust: The grave's a fine and private place, But none, I think, do there embrace. Now therefore, while the youthful hue Sits on thy skin like morning dew, And while thy willing soul transpires At every pore with instant fires, Now let us sport us while we may, And now, like amorous birds of prey, Rather at once our time devour Than languish in his slow-chapt power. Let us roll all our strength and all Our sweetness up into one ball, And tear our pleasures with rough strife Thorough the iron gates of life: Thus, though we cannot make our sun Stand still, yet we will make him run.

Analysis: Marvell is directing this speech to a lady with which he wants to engage in a sexual relationship with. He is trying to convince her of abandoning her coyness and letting loose. He says time is being waster and it is already limited. He tries to reel her in through flattery and appealing to sentiments. He craves her and wants her to give herself to him completely. He describes a perfect world in which their love would never end and knows just what to say to the women in order to get what he wants, sex. The speaker isn't necessarily Marvell. It can be any man really. Although his words are in old English it is fairly clear and to the point. Marvell disguises a vulgar topic for the time with words of flattery and romance. The theme is sex although it can be confused for love.   

Mending Wall BY ROBERT FROST Something there is that doesn't love a wall, That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it, And spills the upper boulders in the sun; And makes gaps even two can pass abreast. The work of hunters is another thing: I have come after them and made repair Where they have left not one stone on a stone, But they would have the rabbit out of hiding, To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean, No one has seen them made or heard them made, But at spring mending-time we find them there. I let my neighbour know beyond the hill; And on a day we meet to walk the line And set the wall between us once again. We keep the wall between us as we go. To each the boulders that have fallen to each. And some are loaves and some so nearly balls We have to use a spell to make them balance: "Stay where you are until our backs are turned!" We wear our fingers rough with handling them. Oh, just another kind of out-door game, One on a side. It comes to little more: There where it is we do not need the wall: He is all pine and I am apple orchard. My apple trees will never get across And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him. He only says, "Good fences make good neighbours." Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder If I could put a notion in his head: "Why do they make good neighbours? Isn't it Where there are cows? But here there are no cows. Before I built a wall I'd ask to know What I was walling in or walling out, And to whom I was like to give offence. Something there is that doesn't love a wall, That wants it down." I could say "Elves" to him, But it's not elves exactly, and I'd rather He said it for himself. I see him there Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed. He moves in darkness as it seems to me, Not of woods only and the shade of trees. He will not go behind his father's saying, And he likes having thought of it so well He says again, "Good fences make good neighbours." Analysis: The poem speaks of a wall that separates the speaker from his neighbors. This wall is built each year for it in inevitably damaged or broken each year with the weather. The speaker isn't happy with such wall for he finds no point in it. He does not think his separation form his neighbors is necessary. Although he does complain about the wall at the end he helps build it over and over again each year. The speaker's name is not given but it is implied to be a man. Through out the poem the diction helps the reader understand the point of view and reasoning of the speaker.  A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning BY JOHN DONNE As virtuous men pass mildly away,    And whisper to their souls to go, Whilst some of their sad friends do say    The breath goes now, and some say, No: So let us melt, and make no noise,    No tear-floods, nor sigh-tempests move; 'Twere profanation of our joys    To tell the laity our love. Moving of th' earth brings harms and fears,    Men reckon what it did, and meant; But trepidation of the spheres,    Though greater far, is innocent. Dull sublunary lovers' love    (Whose soul is sense) cannot admit Absence, because it doth remove    Those things which elemented it. But we by a love so much refined,    That our selves know not what it is, Inter-assured of the mind,    Care less, eyes, lips, and hands to miss. Our two souls therefore, which are one,    Though I must go, endure not yet A breach, but an expansion,    Like gold to airy thinness beat. If they be two, they are two so    As stiff twin compasses are two; Thy soul, the fixed foot, makes no show    To move, but doth, if the other do. And though it in the center sit,    Yet when the other far doth roam, It leans and hearkens after it,    And grows erect, as that comes home. Such wilt thou be to me, who must,    Like th' other foot, obliquely run; Thy firmness makes my circle just,    And makes me end where I begun. My Last Duchess BY ROBERT BROWNING FERRARA That’s my last Duchess painted on the wall, Looking as if she were alive. I call That piece a wonder, now; Fra Pandolf’s hands Worked busily a day, and there she stands. Will’t please you sit and look at her? I said “Fra Pandolf” by design, for never read Strangers like you that pictured countenance, The depth and passion of its earnest glance, But to myself they turned (since none puts by The curtain I have drawn for you, but I) And seemed as they would ask me, if they durst, How such a glance came there; so, not the first Are you to turn and ask thus. Sir, ’twas not Her husband’s presence only, called that spot Of joy into the Duchess’ cheek; perhaps Fra Pandolf chanced to say, “Her mantle laps Over my lady’s wrist too much,” or “Paint Must never hope to reproduce the faint Half-flush that dies along her throat.” Such stuff Was courtesy, she thought, and cause enough For calling up that spot of joy. She had A heart—how shall I say?— too soon made glad, Too easily impressed; she liked whate’er She looked on, and her looks went everywhere. Sir, ’twas all one! My favour at her breast, The dropping of the daylight in the West, The bough of cherries some officious fool Broke in the orchard for her, the white mule She rode with round the terrace—all and each Would draw from her alike the approving speech, Or blush, at least. She thanked men—good! but thanked Somehow—I know not how—as if she ranked My gift of a nine-hundred-years-old name With anybody’s gift. Who’d stoop to blame This sort of trifling? Even had you skill In speech—which I have not—to make your will Quite clear to such an one, and say, “Just this Or that in you disgusts me; here you miss, Or there exceed the mark”—and if she let Herself be lessoned so, nor plainly set Her wits to yours, forsooth, and made excuse— E’en then would be some stooping; and I choose Never to stoop. Oh, sir, she smiled, no doubt, Whene’er I passed her; but who passed without Much the same smile? This grew; I gave commands; Then all smiles stopped together. There she stands As if alive. Will’t please you rise? We’ll meet The company below, then. I repeat, The Count your master’s known munificence Is ample warrant that no just pretense Of mine for dowry will be disallowed; Though his fair daughter’s self, as I avowed At starting, is my object. Nay, we’ll go Together down, sir. Notice Neptune, though, Taming a sea-horse, thought a rarity, Which Claus of Innsbruck cast in bronze for me!