Notes For West Bengal Students

  Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? (Sonnet 18) William Shakespeare (1564-1616) Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate. Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, And summer’s lease hath all too short a date. Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines, And often is his gold complexion dimmed; And every fair from fair sometime declines, By chance, or nature’s changing course, untrimmed; But thy eternal summer shall not fade, Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st, Nor shall death brag thou wand'rest in his shade, When in eternal lines to Time thou grow'st.   So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,   So long lives this, and this gives life to thee. Summary of the poem Sonnet 18 is one of the most famous sonnets written by William Shakespeare. In it, the speaker compares the beauty of his beloved to a summer's day, but ultimately concludes that the beloved is more beautiful and mor...

  Meeting at Night BY ROBERT BROWNING I The grey sea and the long black land; And the yellow half-moon large and low; And the startled little waves that leap In fiery ringlets from their sleep, As I gain the cove with pushing prow, And quench its speed i' the slushy sand.   II Then a mile of warm sea-scented beach; Three fields to cross till a farm appears; A tap at the pane, the quick sharp scratch And blue spurt of a lighted match, And a voice less loud, thro' its joys and fears, Than the two hearts beating each to each!   (The poem "Meeting at Night" by Robert Browning was originally published in the collection Dramatic Romances and Lyrics in 1845. The poem is written in two stanzas of six lines each. The first stanza describes the excitement of a secret journey by a boat on the sea. The second stanza describes the joy of the meeting of the two lovers. The main theme of the poem is the urgency and desire for the lover to meet the...

  COMPOSED UPON WESTMINSTER BRIDGE SEPTEMBER3,1802 William Wordsworth (1770-1850) Earth has not anything to show more fair: Dull would he be of soul who could pass by A sight so touching in its majesty: This City now doth, like a garment, wear The beauty of the morning; silent, bare, Ships, towers, domes, theaters, and temples lie Open unto the fields, and to the sky; All bright and glittering in the smokeless air. Never did sun more beautifully steep In his first splendor, valley, rock, or hill; Ne'er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep! The river glideth at his own sweet will: Dear God! the very houses seem asleep; And all that mighty heart is lying still!     (The poem is written in iambic pentameter, which means that each line has 10 syllables and each syllable is stressed or unstressed in a consistent pattern. The poem is also a Petrarchan sonnet, which means that it has 14 lines and follows a specific rhyme scheme. The poem descri...

  The Sick Rose   By William Blake (1775-1827)   O Rose thou art sick, The invisible worm, That flies in the night, In the howling storm, Has found out thy bed Of crimson joy; And his dark secret love Does thy life destroy. Substance of the poem The rose is a symbol of love and beauty, but in this poem it is sick. The worm that has found its bed is a symbol of something dark and destructive, perhaps even evil. The worm's love for the rose is "dark secret love," which suggests that it is a love that is not meant to be. The worm's love is destroying the rose, just as evil can destroy love and beauty. The poem is full of imagery that suggests sickness and decay. The rose is "sick," the worm "flies in the night," and the storm is "howling." The bed of the rose is described as "crimson joy," but this joy is tainted by the worm's dark love. The poem ends with a sense of despair. The rose is dying, and...