Name: _____________________________
Tone Worksheet 3

Directions: Read each poem and then answer the following questions.

Noon
By Kendall Banning

   The bees are humming, humming in the clover;
       The bobolink1 is singing in the rye;
   The brook is purling2, purling in the valley,
       And the river's laughing, radiant, to the sky!

   The buttercups are nodding in the sunlight;
       The winds are whispering, whispering to the pine;
   The joy of June has found me; as an aureole3 it's crowned me
       Because, oh best belovèd, you are mine!

1. bobolink: a songbird.
2. purling: when a stream flows with a murmuring sound. 
3. aureole: a golden circle of light, usually around the head of a god or a saint.	

1. What is this poem about? ____________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________________

2. What is the speaker's tone? ___________________________________________________________

Explain your answer using textual evidence.

	

The Land of Nod
By Robert Louis Stevenson

   From breakfast on through all the day
   At home among my friends I stay,
   But every night I go abroad
   Afar into the land of Nod.

   All by myself I have to go,
   With none to tell me what to do--
   All alone beside the streams
   And up the mountain-sides of dreams.	

The strangest things are there for me,
   Both things to eat and things to see,
   And many frightening sights abroad
   Till morning in the land of Nod.

   Try as I like to find the way,
   I never can get back by day,
   Nor can remember plain and clear
   The curious music that I hear.	

3. What is this poem about? ____________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________________

4. What is the speaker's tone? ___________________________________________________________

Explain your answer using textual evidence.

	

Swinging
By W. K. Clifford

   Swing, swing, swing,
       See! the sun is gone away;
   Swing, swing, swing,
       Gone to make a bright new day.
   Swing, swing, swing.
       I can see as up I go
       The poplars waving to and fro,
       I can see as I come down
       The lights are twinkling in the town,
       High and low,
       Fast and slow,
       Swing, swing, swing.

	
5. What is this poem about? ____________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________________

6. What is the speaker's tone? ___________________________________________________________

Explain your answer using textual evidence.

	

Little Things
By Ebenezer Cobham Brewer

   Little drops of water,
     Little grains of sand,
   Make the mighty ocean
     And the pleasant land.

   Thus the little minutes,
     Humble though they be,
   Make the mighty ages
     Of eternity1.	

1. eternity: forever

7. What is this poem about? ____________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________________

8. What is the speaker's tone? ___________________________________________________________

Explain your answer using textual evidence.