Comrade, where wilt thou be tonight The tempest rushes through the sky; NOTES AND QUESTIONS Biography. Celia Thaxter (1835-1894), whose father was a lighthouse keeper on White Island, one of the rocky "Isles of Shoals," off the coast of New Hampshire, had the ocean for a companion in her early years. She studied the sunrises and the sunsets, the wild flowers, the birds, the rocks, and all sea life. This selection shows how intimate was her friendship with the bird life of the coast. Discussion. 1. The poet and the sandpiper were comrades; in the first stanza, what tells you this? 2. Which lines give you pictures that might be used to illustrate this poem? 3. What did the poet and the bird have in common? 4. Give a quotation from the poem that describes the sandpiper's habits. 5. What effect on you have the repetitions of the second line of the poem at the end of the first and second stanzas and the variations of it at the end of the third and fourth stanzas? 6. Which lines express confidence in God's care for His children? 7. What classes of "God's children" do "little sandpiper" and "I," respectively, represent? 8. On page 20 you read that Celia Thaxter learned a lesson of faith and courage from the little sandpiper; which lines tell you this? 9. Find in the Glossary the meaning of: bleached; rave; close-reefed; fitful; scan. 10. Pronounce: stanch; loosed; wroth. Phrases for Study silent ghosts in misty shrouds, 60, 11 flash of fluttering drapery, 60, 20 loosed storm breaks furiously, 61, 2 wroth the tempest rushes, 61, 5 "Summer is coming, summer is coming, Light again, leaf again, life again, love again!" 5 Sing the new year in under the blue. Last year you sang it as gladly. "New, new, new, new!" Is it then so new "Love again, song again, nest again, young again!" 10 Never a prophet so crazy! And hardly a daisy as yet, little friend, See, there is hardly a daisy. "Here again, here, here, here, happy year!" 15 Summer is coming, is coming, my dear, NOTES AND QUESTIONS Biography: Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809-1892) was born in Lincolnshire, England, and attended Cambridge University. He devoted his whole life to poetry and became one of the greatest poets of the nineteenth century. He succeeded Wordsworth as poet laureate, and because of this honor, wrote a number of poems about matters of timely and national interest. One of these is his "Ode on the Death of the Duke of Wellington." You will learn to know him as a teller of tales in verse, some of them modern ballads, others the old romances about King Arthur; as a writer of many lovely song-poems, or lyrics; and as a poet of religious faith. Note. The song-thrush, or throstle, found in England and other European countries, is a charming songster. This is the bird of which Browning wrote, "He sings each song twice over, Lest you should think he never could recapture The first fine careless rapture!" Discussion. 1. Which lines in the first stanza represent the song of the bird? 2. Which line gives Tennyson's answer to the throstle? 3. Point out the words in the poem that represent the bird's song. 4. Which lines tell you that Tennyson did not share the little bird's hope? 5. What do the last two lines show that the bird did for the poet? 6. On page 20 you read that we treasure some poems for their musical quality; is this such a poem? TO THE CUCKOO WILLIAM WORDSWORTH O blithe newcomer! I have heard, O cuckoo! shall I call thee bird 5 While I am lying on the grass, Though babbling only to the vale, Thrice welcome, darling of the Spring! 15 No bird, but an invisible thing, A voice, a mystery; Biography. William Wordsworth (1770-1850) was born in the beautiful Cumberland Highlands of northern England, which furnished the inspiration for most of his poetry. While still a young man, he retired to the Lake Country, where he lived a simple life. Wordsworth was devoted to the cause of liberty; he was a believer in the beauty and charm of the humble life; he often wrote about peasants rather than about lords and ladies and knights of romance. His poems on flowers and birds show the simplicity and sincerity of his nature. Wordsworth's fame grew steadily during his lifetime, and for the last seven years he was poet laureate. The cuckoo is a European bird noted for its two-syllabled whistle, in imitation of which it is named; also for its habit of laying eggs in the nests of other birds for them to hatch, instead of building a nest of its own. Note. "To the Cuckoo" is a lyric, that is, a poem which is suitable to be sung to a musical accompaniment. It takes its name from the lyre, a harp played by the ancient Greeks to accompany songs. In a lyric the poet does not tell us of an event or of something that happened, but he expresses some deep feeling of his own. In this song the poet expresses his joy at hearing the familiar "voice" again, which recalls to him the happy days of his childhood. Other well-known lyrics by Wordsworth are “My Heart Leaps Up," "March," and "The Daffodils." Discussion. 1. Why does the poet call the cuckoo "a wandering voice"? 2. What other names does the poet call the cuckoo? 3. To what habit of the cuckoo does this poem call attention? 4. What "golden time" is mentioned? 5. Why does the poet say a "fairy place" is a fit home for the cuckoo? 6. On page 19 you read that we are sometimes influenced by Nature because we cannot understand its mysteries; how does Wordsworth make you feel that much of the charm of the cuckoo is due to the fact that it is "an invisible thing," "a mystery"? 7. Find in the Glossary the meaning of: vale; pace; unsubstantial. 8. Pronounce: blithe; blesséd. The late Theodore Roosevelt was a man who practiced what he preached, and when he said that the cause of bird protection was "entitled to the support of every sensible man, woman, and child in the country," he knew that the statement applied to 5 himself just as much as to anyone else. Colonel Roosevelt was always interested in birds, and when he was President of the United States, with vast responsibilities and endless work, he still found time to collect the material for his book, Birds of the White House Grounds. So it was fitting that one of the foremost 10 bird clubs in the world should be organized in his own home, and that he should become its president. 31 I shall never forget the night. It was the fourteenth of May, |