Term 2 Home Learning Lesson 1

This is the poem that I have chosen.

Take this kiss upon the brow!

And, in parting from you now,
Thus much let me avow--
You are not wrong, who deem
That my days have been a dream;
Yet if hope has flown away
In a night, or in a day,
In a vision, or in none,
Is it therefore the less gone?
All that we see or seem
Is but a dream within a dream.

I stand amid the roar

Of a surf-tormented shore,
And I hold within my hand
Grains of the golden sand--
How few! yet how they creep
Through my fingers to the deep,
While I weep--while I weep!
O God! can I not grasp
Them with a tighter clasp?
O God! can I not save
One from the pitiless wave?
Is all that we see or seem
But a dream within a dream?

Figurative language is used in the poem in the form of a:

Hyperbole

I stand amid the roar

Of a surf-tormented shore

We know that surfs of water break upon the shore, but it does not hurt the shore. This however, implies that the shore is hurt by it. This might be exaggerating it a bit.

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Personification

Grains of the golden sand--
How few! yet how they creep

Grains of sand cannot 'creep' - it is something that animals like snakes do. Or people can too. Thus, this is personification, as it makes it sound like the sand can do something that we can do.

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Metaphor

Yet if hope has flown away

Hope has been compared to flying away. It means that your hope was gone, as if it had flown away.

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Simile

There us no simile in the whole poem.

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Symbolism

Grains of the golden sand--
How few! yet how they creep
Through my fingers to the deep,
While I weep--while I weep!

To me, I feel that the author of the poem had used the sand to represent the tears. The sand fell down from the hand, while the tears fell down from the eye.

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I like this poem because it, to me, seems to be describing that all we are experiencing now, all the grief and hardships and everything in life, is all a dream inside a bigger dream, with the dream being the things we experience and the bigger dream representing life itself. I do think that this poem is quite meaningful, as many things happen in life that we wish that it was all a dream, like failing our exams and such. Also, another reason we I think that the poem is good is because sometimes, life seems so unreal, and time passes so fast, as if we are in a dream. That is why I like this poem.