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LITERARY ANALYSIS.-177. take wing. What is the figure of speech? (See Def. 20.)

179-181. How does the author express death in battle? In shipwreck? What is the figure of speech? (See Def. 28.) Translate it into

183. sin.

the concrete.

186-189. He faded... behind. Point out examples of an exquisite choice of words.

189. for those he left behind. The elder brother would be the sole survivor, yet the plural is used. "There is much delicacy in this plural. By such a fanciful multiplying of the survivors the elder brother prevents self-intrusion; himself and his loneliness are, as it were, kept out of sight and forgotten."HALES.

193. As a departing, etc.
194, 195. An eye... bright.

What is the figure of speech?

What word alone arrests the hyperbole ?

190

195

A little talk of better days,
A little hope my own to raise;
For I was sunk in silence-lost
In this last loss, of all the most.
And then the sighs he would suppress
Of fainting nature's feebleness.
More slowly drawn, grew less and less.
I listened, but I could not hear-

I called, for I was wild with fear;

I knew 'twas hopeless, but my dread
Would not be thus admonished;

I called, and thought I heard a sound

I burst my chain; with one strong bound
I rushed to him: I found him not.

I only stirred in this black spot;
I only lived-I only drew

Th' accursed breath of dungeon dew;

The last, the sole, the dearest link
Between me and the eternal brink,
Which bound me to my failing race,
Was broken in this fatal place.
One on the earth, and one beneath-
My brothers-both had ceased to breathe.
I took that hand that lay so still-
Alas! my own was full as chill;
I had not strength to stir or strive,
But felt that I was still alive-

A frantic feeling, when we know

200

205

210

215

220

225

That what we love shall ne'er be so.
I know not why

I could not die,

I had no earthly hope-but faith,
And that forbade a selfish death.

LITERARY ANALYSIS.-199. my own. Supply the ellipsis. 217. Which. What is the antecedent?

230. a selfish death. Explain.

230

IX.

What next befell me then and there
I know not well-I never knew.
First came the loss of light and air,

And then of darkness too.

I had no thought, no feeling-none:
Among the stones I stood a stone ;
And was, scarce conscious what I wist,
As shrubless crags within the mist;
For all was blank and bleak and gray;
It was not night-it was not day;
It was not even the dungeon light,
So hateful to my heavy sight;
But vacancy absorbing space,
And fixedness, without a place;

235

240

There were no stars, no earth, no time,
No check, no change, no good, no clime;
But silence, and a stirless breath
Which neither was of life nor death-

245

Á sea of stagnant idleness,

Blind, boundless, mute, and motionless.

X.

A light broke in upon my brain—

It was the carol of a bird;

It ceased; and then it came again—

The sweetest song ear ever heard;

LITERARY ANALYSIS.-231-250. The description of the deadly torpor that now came over the prisoner is of masterly force. It is in stanza ix. that Byron tries his power of language to the utmost, and displays best how remarkable that power was.-The pupils may select the most striking touches in this lurid picture.—An examination of the vocabulary may be made as to the proportion of Anglo-Saxon and classical, of long and short words, and of nouns as compared with words of other parts of speech.

251-258. By what is the prisoner delivered from the deadly torpor described in stanza ix.? Compare this with the mode in which the Ancient Mariner (see Coleridge's poem of that name) is saved from a like stagnation, by the sight of the fishes disporting themselves. What do you take to be the phi

losophy of the matter?

250

And mine was thankful till my eyes
Ran over with the glad surprise,
And they that moment could not see
I was the mate of misery;

But then, by dull degrees, came back
My senses to their wonted track:
I saw the dungeon walls and floor
Close slowly round me as before;
I saw the glimmer of the sun
Creeping as it before had done;

But through the crevice where it came,
That bird was perched as fond and tame,
And tamer than upon the tree—

A lovely bird with azure wings,

And song that said a thousand things,
And seemed to say them all to me!

I never saw its light before—

I ne'er shall see its likeness more.

It seemed to me to want a mate,

But was not half so desolate;

And it was come to love me when
None lived to love me so again,

And, cheering from my dungeon's brink,
Had brought me back to feel and think.

I know not if it late were free,

Or broke its cage to perch on mine;

But knowing well captivity,

Sweet bird! I could not wish for thine-
Or if it were in winged guise,

A visitant from Paradise;

For-Heaven forgive that thought, the while
Which made me both to weep and smile!—
I sometimes deemed that it might be
My brother's soul come down to me;

255

260

265

270

275

280

285

LITERARY ANALYSIS.-257, 258. And they... misery. 265-292. Paraphrase the touching episode of the bird. special beauty, tenderness, or pathos.

Explain this passage.

Select passages of

But then at last away it flew,

And then 'twas mortal well I knew ;
For he would never thus have flown,
And left me twice so doubly lone-
Lone as the corse within its shroud,
Lone as a solitary cloud,

A single cloud on a sunny day,
While all the rest of heaven is clear,
A frown upon the atmosphere,
That hath no business to appear
When skies are blue and earth is gay.

XI.

A kind of change came in my fate—
My keepers grew compassionate.

I know not what had made them so-
They were inured to sights of woe;
But so it was my broken chain
With links unfastened did remain ;
And it was liberty to stride
Along my cell from side to side,
And up and down, and then athwart,
And tread it over every part:
And round the pillars one by one,
Returning where my walk begun—
Avoiding only, as I trod,

My brothers' graves without a sod;
For if I thought with heedless tread
My steps profaned their lowly bed,

LITERARY ANALYSIS.

worth

-

294. Lone as a solitary cloud. "I wandered lonely as a cloud

That floats on high o'er vales and hills."

301. compassionate. Grammatical construction?

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Compare Words

312-317. Express in your own words the affecting circumstance noted in these lines.

315. their lowly bed. In what poem, previously given, does this expression

occur?

290

295

300

305

310

315

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