The Swing
How do you like to go up in a swing,
Up in the air so blue?
Oh, I do think it the pleasantest thing
Ever a child can do!

Up in the air and over the wall,
Till I can see so wide,
River and trees and cattle and all
Over the countryside--

Till I look down on the garden green,
Down on the roof so brown--
Up in the air I go flying again,
Up in the air and down!
Robert Louis Stevenson
Because I Could Not Stop for Death( personification)
Top of Form

Because I could not stop for Death,
He kindly stopped for me;
The carriage held but just ourselves
And Immortality.

We slowly drove, he knew no haste,
And I had put away
My labour, and my leisure too,
For his civility.

We passed the school where children played,
Their lessons scarcely done;
We passed the fields of gazing grain,
We passed the setting sun.

We paused before a house that seemed
A swelling of the ground;
The roof was scarcely visible,
The cornice but a mound.

Since then 'tis centuries; but each
Feels shorter than the day
I first surmised the horses' heads
Were toward eternity.

The poem by Emily Dickinson "Because I could not stop for Death" is know to be one of the best poems in English. Every image extends and intensifies each other. But there are some pro and cons in this poem.
The poem helps us to characterize and bring death down to a more personal level. It shows a different perspective of death that the more popular views of death being brutal and cruel. Emily Dickinson makes death seem more passive and easy. The theme of this poem being that death is natural and unstoppable for everyday but, at the same time giving comfort that it is not end of the a Soul's journey. She uses different words to symbolize the stages of life such as "School, where children strove" may represent childhood, "fields of gazing grain" as maturity and "setting sun" as old age and then the words "horse heads" leads "towards eternity" represents another stage which is eternity and can only be obtained after death. She makes death seem as a kind and civil gentleman.
Even
THE DEATH OF A MAD DOG
The poem says that people thought that the man was good, because he made a show of piety, charity and respectability. They didn't know anything about viruses in those days and looked for explanations of disease in as expressions of good and evil. People thought that that the bite of the mad dog would kill him but in fact the bite killed the dog. The inference being that the man was more poisonous than the dog: meaning that the man was wicked and the dog was innocent.

oliver goldsmith has very smartly written a satirical poem in a undertone way. if read just plainly it state that the man was good and as the dog was at fault, he died in the end. but right from the start, the poet signals us a very different tone. at the start it states that the poem will give us a bit of shock. it even states that the man described in the poem, seems godly and kind ONLY when he dresses himself(not others) and when he goes to pray(not any other time). this shows that he's just a fake personality. the dog on the other side can be taken as symbol of poor or dethroned virtuos people who are not getting what they deserve because of such 'godly' people around. hence, to meet their private ends i.e to take revenge, the dog bites the man. poet also personifies the dog with human quality of gaining private ends. the neighbours- here being the typical and stereotype image of gossip gradually spread the news and are peeping in the matter of the bite. they predict that due to the bite the man will die. which is a very obvious remark. the poet also states the neighbours to be non christians i,e they have not followed the rules of the bible-probably. so according to the poet, surprisingly to every christian eye, the dog dies and the man survives at the end. this shows that the man contained more poison in him than the dog and at the end, the evil survives and the good is sacrificed. thus this poem is a bang-on on the reality of life.

THE CLOUD
The whole poem contains six stanzas, of which these are the first and the last. Shelly imagines that the cloud is a person, the ‘I’ who speaks and describes itself. The first stanza tells us about its activity; the last stanza deals with the growth and disappearance of clouds, while here ‘I’ really stands for moisture-water in all its forms, on earth and in the sky. The cloud says that it brings fresh showers of rain for thirsty plants and flowers from the oceans, seas, lakes, rivers and streams; water evaporates from these to form clouds, and then fall as rain. When the sun gets too hot in the afternoon and the plants are at the mercy of the scorching heat of the sun, the rain bears a light shade for the leaves and relieves them of the uneasiness. When the wings of the clouds are shaken, it wakes up the idle dews on the leaves of plants and enlightened their flowering buds. The flora are cooed to rest on the motherly earth; as the earth is the mother of all living things; as she moves around the sun. Shelly is talking of the earth as a planet. The ‘flail’ is an instrument used for beating wheat, to separate the grain from the husk. The hail strikes the earth hard, like a flail hitting the wheat. Hail consists of little balls of ice, so when it lies on the ground, it makes the green plains look white. Then the hail melts into water again, evaporates into the air to form clouds of rain, and ultimately pours down joyfully as stormy rain along with thunder and lightning. | The rain claims and considers itself to be the daughter of Earth and Water; since moisture evaporates from both earth and water to form clouds. It is a child that is brought up by the ultimate nurse of Mother Nature i.e. the sky. The rain passes through very small spaces or holes in a substance called pores. Rain passes into these spaces in the land and sea, and the water returns from them to the cloud by evaporation. We perspire through pores in our skin. The rain can alter and change but it cannot die. After the heavy rains, there are no stains of showers even when the sky is clear. The sun rays bend in the air, especially when the sun is low, and curve down towards the earth. The convex gleams make the clear air look like a blue dome of air. The rain silently laughs at its empty tomb, or monument to a dead person whose body is not buried there. The blue sky is the cloud’s ‘cenotaph’, because the cloud seems to have died and is not present in the sky. At the right appointed time the cloud will return to destroy the blue sky.

A Nation’s Strength | | Ralph Waldo Emerson (1904) | | What makes a nation’s pillars high
And its foundations strong?
What makes it mighty to defy
The foes that round it throng?

It is not gold. Its kingdoms grand
Go down in battle shock;
Its shafts are laid on sinking sand,
Not on abiding rock.

Is it the sword? Ask the red dust
Of empires passed away;
The blood has turned their stones to rust,
Their glory to decay.

And is it pride? Ah, that bright crown
Has seemed to nations sweet;
But God has struck its luster down
In ashes at his feet.

Not gold but only men can make
A people great and strong;
Men who for truth and honor’s sake
Stand fast and suffer long.

Brave men who work while others sleep,
Who dare while others fly...
They build a nation’s pillars deep
And lift them to the sky. |
EXPLANATION
Not gold, but only men can make,
A people great and strong, who for truth and honour’s sake,
Stand fast and suffer long.
Reference to context:
These lines have been taken from the poem “A Nation’s Strength” written by an American poet Ralph Waldo Emerson.
In this poem poet tells that wealth has nothing to do with the strength of a nation. It is only man who alone can make a nation great and strong.
Explanation:
In these lines poet says that wealth can not make a nation strong and powerful. But only sincere men can make it strong. Brave and courageous men who are ready to suffer and who can stand firm for the sake of truth and honour during the period of hardships.
2. Brave men who work while others sleep, Who dare while other fly They build a nation’s pillars deep, And lift them to the sky. Reference to context:
These lines have been taken from the poem “A Nation’s Strength” written by an American poet Ralph Waldo Emerson.
In this poem poet tells that wealth has nothing to do with the strength of a nation. It is only man who alone can make a nation great and strong.
Explanation:
In these lines poet says that secret of a nation’s greatness are indeed those heroes who work hard while others waste their time in enjoying comfortable sleep. They face all challenges of time bravely and courageously while others run away. Only these brave men can build their nation on fast and sure foundationsof virtue and take it to highest point of greatness and make it very famous in the community of nations.