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https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=5L-kKxePGqA

https://prezi.com/m/_7q7r9l_6p3p/mother-to-son-langston-hughes/
Well, son, I’ll tell you:

Life for me ain’t been no crystal stair.

It’s had tacks in it,

And splinters,

And boards torn up,

And places with no carpet on the floor—

Bare.

But all the time

I’se been a-climbin’ on,

And reachin’ landin’s,

And turnin’ corners,

And sometimes goin’ in the dark

Where there ain’t been no light.

So boy, don’t you turn back.

Don’t you set down on the steps

’Cause you finds it’s kinder hard.

Don’t you fall now—

For I’se still goin’, honey,

I’se still climbin’,

And life for me ain’t been no crystal stair.

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The sea is never the same twice. Today

the waves open their lions-mouths hungry

for the shore and I feel the earth helpless.

Some days their foamy edges are lace

at my feet, the sea a sheet of green silk.

Sometimes the shore brings souvenirs

from a storm, I sift spoils of sea grass:

find a broken finger of coral, a torn fan,

examine a sponge's hollow throat, watch

a man-of-war die a sapphire in the sand.

Some days there's nothing but sand

quiet as snow, I walk, eyes on the wind

sometimes laden with silver tasting salt,

sometimes still as the sun. Some days

the sun is a dollop of honey and raining

light on the sea glinting diamond dust,

sometimes there are only clouds, clouds—

sometimes solid as continents drifting

across the sky, other times wispy, white

roses that swirl into tigers, into cathedrals,

into hands, and I remember some days

I'm still a boy on this beach, wanting

to catch a seagull, cup a tiny silver fish,

build a perfect sand castle. Some days I am

a teenager blind to death even as I watch

waves seep into nothingness. Most days

I'm a man tired of being a man, sleeping

in the care of dusk's slanted light, or a man

scared of being a man, seeing some god

in the moonlight streaming over the sea.

Some days I imagine myself walking

this shore with feet as worn as driftwood,

old and afraid of my body. Someday,

I suppose I'll return someplace like waves

trickling through the sand, back to sea

without any memory of being, but if

I could choose eternity, it would be here

aging with the moon, enduring in the space

between every grain of sand, in the cusp

every wave, and every seashell's hollow.

Révision notes

Imagery

Foamy edges of lace - metaphor

The sea is a sheet of green silk - metaphor

The sun is a dollop of honey - metaphor

Solid as continents drifting - simile

Man of war did a sapphire in the sand - metaphor

The waves open their mouths hungry - personification

As quiet as snow - simile

The poet describes the beauty of the ever changing sea shore

The tone varies as the images change. The poet imagines if he were to experience eternity he would like it to be by the sea. The seashore is a form of heaven for him

Structure

Long narrative prom written in continuous verses. There are between 9-12 syllables per line to give a steady rhythm. The poet used very little punctuation as he allows the poem to flow

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In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie,
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K6BlOkpdkg8

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Although the association between fields of poppies and commemorating the war dead predates the First World War, the war-poppies connection was certainly popularised by WWI and in particular by this John McCrae poem, 'In Flanders Fields'. John McCrae (1872-1918), a Canadian lieutenant colonel, was inspired to write it after he conducted the burial service for an artillery officer, Alexis Helmer, who had been killed in the conflict. In the chaplain's absence, McCrae, as the company doctor, presided over the burial of the young man.

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

McCrae was inspired to write the poem on 3 May 1915, following Helmer's funeral. In summary, the poem observes how poppies blow in the fields where the fallen soldiers (including Helmer) are buried. The sound of the guns firing on the western front has almost drowned out the natural birdsong in the skies above - almost, but not entirely, it's worth noting. There is yet hope. But not for the men who have died, who until so recently lived and loved. But the poem does not call war futile (as Wilfred Owen, in his poem 'Futility', would, later in the War): the final stanza calls for those who are living to take the baton (or, to use McCrae's symbol, the torch) and continue the fight against the enemy. If the living do not finish the fight begun by those who gave their lives, the dead will not be able to rest in their graves (this makes McCrae's poem like a modern revenge tragedy, where the ghost of the wronged dead returns and announces that he cannot be at peace until his death is avenged - see Shakespeare's Hamlet, for instance). The poem begins with the three words that make its title, and ends with the same three words: 'In Flanders fields'.

Does the idyllic opening stanza of Tennyson 's Arthurian poem 'The Lady of Shalott' lurk behind the first stanza of McCrae's poem? Tennyson's poem begins:

On either side the river lie
Long fields of barley and of rye,
That clothe the wold and meet the sky;
And thro' the field the road runs by
To many-tower'd Camelot.

The two poems share a similar rhythm, references to sky and fields, and similar rhyme words. Coincidence, perhaps. But it's suggestive to think that McCrae was perhaps recalling Tennyson's rural paradise in his own poem; in Tennyson's poem, too, paradise will soon be lost.

On the issue of rhyme, it's notable that McCrae's poem utilises just two different rhyme sounds: the 'I' sounds of sky/fly/lie/high/die and the 'O' sounds of blow/row/below/ago/glow/foe/throw/grow. And, of course, 'fields', in that repeated refrain, 'In Flanders fields'. This makes the poem almost chantlike, and lends conviction to its final stanza in particular.

The phrase 'We are the Dead' from the beginning of the second stanza may have inspired the phrase which Winston and Julia use in George Orwell's dystopian masterpiece, Nineteen Eighty-Four. But even before WWI was over, the mood had darkened, with later war poets analysing the horrors of war more closely, with 'warts and all'. Wilfred Owen could not share McCrae's faith that the war was worth persevering with. Death led simply to more death. McCrae, like Owen, would not survive to see the Armistice: he died of pneumonia in January 1918.

The finest affordable anthology of war poetry is Poetry of the First World War An Anthology (Oxford World's Classics) . It's well worth investing in, especially as it costs no more than lunch usually does.

For more nature poetry with a darker side, see our analysis of Blake's poem of corruption and 'crimson joy', 'The Sick Rose'. Alternatively, check out our top tips for writing a good English Literature essay. For more war poetry, see our analysis of Owen's 'Anthem for Doomed Youth' and Rosenberg's 'Break of Day in the Trenches'. If you're studying poetry, we recommend checking out these five books for the student of poetry.
Image: John McCrae in c. 1914, by William Notman and Son; Wikimedia Commons.

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A Short Analysis of John McCrae's 'In Flanders Fields'

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An introduction to one of the most famous poems of WWI Although the association between fields of poppies and commemorating the war dead predates the First World War, the war-poppies connection was certainly popularised by WWI and in particular by this John McCrae poem, 'In Flanders Fields'.

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https://prezi.com/m/qedmz4_8umww/when-you-are-old-william-butler-yeats/

When you are old and grey and full of sleep,

And nodding by the fire, take down this book,

And slowly read, and dream of the soft look

Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;

How many loved your moments of glad grace,

And loved your beauty with love false or true,

But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,

And loved the sorrows of your changing face;

And bending down beside the glowing bars,

Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled

And paced upon the mountains overhead

And hid his face amid a crowd of stars

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oDG4shY9WBo

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Stopping By The Woods On A Snowy Evening : Robert Frost

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Stopping By The Woods On A Snowy Evening : Robert Frost

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Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village, though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQhIZhwoj14

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Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening by Robert Frost Flashcards | Quizlet

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Start studying Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening by Robert Frost. Learn vocabulary, terms, and more with flashcards, games, and other study tools.

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Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim,

Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

Though as for that the passing there

Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference

https://youtu.be/KUaQgRiJukA

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GoConqr - 'The Road Not Taken' by Robert Frost

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Take a look at our interactive learning Mind Map about 'The Road Not Taken' by Robert Frost, or create your own Mind Map using our free cloud based Mind Map maker and mobile apps.

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://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uF0U0pVK0bkl

I sat all morning in the college sick bay
Counting bells knelling classes to a close.
At two o'clock our neighbors drove me home.

In the porch I met my father crying--
He had always taken funerals in his stride--
And Big Jim Evans saying it was a hard blow.

The baby cooed and laughed and rocked the pram
When I came in, and I was embarrassed
By old men standing up to shake my hand

And tell me they were "sorry for my trouble,"
Whispers informed strangers I was the eldest,
Away at school, as my mother held my hand

In hers and coughed out angry tearless sighs.
At ten o'clock the ambulance arrived
With the corpse, stanched and bandaged by the nurses.

Next morning I went up into the room. Snowdrops
And candles soothed the bedside; I saw him
For the first time in six weeks. Paler now,

Wearing a poppy bruise on his left temple,
He lay in the four foot box as in his cot.
No gaudy scars, the bumper knocked him clear.

A four foot box, a foot for every year.

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Mid-Term Break (Seamus Heaney) Flashcards | Quizlet

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Start studying Mid-Term Break (Seamus Heaney). Learn vocabulary, terms, and more with flashcards, games, and other study tools.