Poetry Appreciation.doc

Poem Appreciation:
第九讲—第十讲
The Wild Honey Suckle (P29)
The Wild Honey Suckle
Philip Freneau
Fair flower, that dost ely grow,
Hid in this silent, dull retreat,
Untouched thy honied blossoms blow,
Unseen thy little branches greet:
No roving foot shall crush thee here,
No busy hand provoke a tear.
By Nature's self in whitearrayed, She bade thee shun the vulgar eye,
And planted here he guardian shade,
And sent soft waters murmuring by;
Thus quietly thy summer goes,
Thy days declining to repose,
Smit with those charms, that must decay,
I grieve to see your future doom;
They died - nor were those flowers more gay,
The flowers that did in Eden bloom;
Unpitying frosts, and Autumn's power
Shall leave no vestige of this flower.
From morning suns and evening dews
At first thy little being came:
If nothing once, you nothing lose,
For when you die you are the same;
The space between, is but an hour,
The frail duration of a flower.

1st stanza:
The honey suckle lives an obscure, unknown, forgotten, serene, and safe life.
2nd stanza: The pure, innocent honey suckle is not contaminated by the vulgar eye of people and protected, embraced, and nurtured by Nature.
3rd stanza: grief upon the flower’s death
4th stanza: nothing gained, nothing lost
第十四讲
A Psalm of Life (p102)
by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
.
Tell me not, in  mournful numbers,
Life is but an empty dream!
For the soul is  dead that slumbers,
And things are not what they seem.
.
Life is real! Life is  earnest!
And the grave is not its goal;
Dust thou art, to dust returnest,
Was not spoken of  the soul.
.
Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,
Is our destined end  or way;
But to act, that each  tomorrow
Find us farther than today.
.
Art is long, and Time is fleeting,
And our hearts,  though stout and brave,
Still, like muffled  drums, are beating
Funeral marches to the grave.
.
In the world's broad field of  battle,
In the bivouac of  Life,
Be not d