Summaries & Analysis

London By William Blake (Summary & Analysis)

black and brown concrete building

I wander through each chartered street,Near where the chartered Thames does flow,And mark in every face I meetMarks of weakness, marks of woe. In every cry of every man,(And) In every infant’s cry of fear,In every voice, in every ban,The mind-forged manacles I hear. How the chimney-sweepers cryEvery blackening church appalls,And the hapless soldier’s sighRuns …

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Barbie Doll By Marge Piercy (Summary, Explanation & Analysis)

Barbie Doll

This girl child was born as usualand presented dolls that did pee-pee& miniature GE stoves and ironsand wee lipsticks the color of cherry candy.Then in the magic of puberty, a classmate said:You have a great big nose and fat legs.She was healthy, tested intelligent,possessed strong arms and back,abundant sexual drive, and manual dexterity.She went to …

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The Ruined Maid by Thomas Hardy

The Ruined Maid Poem

“O ‘Melia, my dear, this does everything crown! Who could have supposed I should meet you in Town?And whence such fair garments, such prosperi-ty?”–“O didn’t you know I’d been ruined?” said she.–“You left us in tatters, without shoes or socks,Tired of digging potatoes, and spudding up docks;And now you’ve gay bracelets and bright feathers three!”–“Yes: …

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Still to Be Neat by Ben Jonson’s (Analysis & Summary)

Fog by carl sandburg summary analysis translation explanation

Still to be neat, still to be dressed,As you were going to a feast;Still be powdered, still perfumed;Lady, it is to be presumed,Though art’s hid causes are not found,All is not sweet, all is not sound.Give me a look, give me a faceThat makes simplicity a grace;Robes loosely flowing, hair as free;Such sweet neglect more …

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On His Blindness By John Milton (Summary & Analysis)

John Milton

‘When I consider how my light is spent,Ere half my days, in this dark world and wide,And that one talent which is death to hideLodged with me useless, though my soul more bentTo serve therewith my Maker, and presentMy true account, lest he returning chide,“Doth God exact day-labor, light denied?”I fondly ask. But Patience, to …

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Ozymandias by Percy Bysshe Shelley (Critical Analysis)

Ozymandias

I met a traveler from an antique landWho said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stoneStand in the desert …. Near them, on the sand,Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,Tell that its sculptor well those passions readWhich yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,The hand that …

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Sailing to Byzantium by William Butler Yeats

sea landscape water ocean

First stanza That is no country for old men. The young            In one another’s arms, birds in the trees            – Those dying generations – at their song,            The salmon-falls, the mackerel-crowded seas,            Fish, flesh, or fowl, commend all summer long            Whatever is begotten, born, and dies.            Caught in that sensual music all neglect            Monuments of unaging intellect. Second stanza             An aged man …

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