Name: _____________________________
Tone Worksheet 4

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

from Songs of an Empty House
By Marguerite Wilkinson

My father got me strong and straight and slim,
  And I give thanks to him;
My mother bore me glad and sound and sweet, --
  I kiss her feet.

I have no son, whose life of flesh and fire
  Sprang from my splendid sire,
No daughter for whose soul my mother's flesh
  Wrought raiment1 fresh.

Life's venerable2 rhythms like a flood
  Beat in my brain and blood,
Crying from all the generations past,
  "Is this the last?"

And I make answer to my haughty3 dead,
  Who made me, heart and head,
"Even the sunbeams falter, flicker and bend --
  I am the end."

1. raiment: clothing or material
2. venerable: commanding respect because of age, character, or position.
3. haughty: expressing an attitude of superiority. 	

1. What is this poem about? ____________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________________

2. What is the speaker's tone? ___________________________________________________________

Explain your answer using textual evidence.

	

Prevision
By Aline Kilmer

I know you are too dear to stay;
You are so exquisitely sweet:
My lonely house will thrill someday
To echoes of your eager feet.

I hold your words within my heart,
So few, so infinitely dear;
Watching your fluttering hands I start
At the corroding touch of fear.	

A faint, unearthly music rings
From you to Heaven -- it is not far!
A mist about your beauty clings
Like a thin cloud before a star.

My heart shall keep the child I knew,
When you are really gone from me,
And spend its life remembering you
As shells remember the lost sea.	

3. What is this poem about? ____________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________________

4. What is the speaker's tone? ___________________________________________________________

Explain your answer using textual evidence.

	
from I Shall Not Die for Thee
By Douglas Hyde

   For thee, I shall not die,
     Woman of high fame and name;
   Foolish men thou mayest slay
     I and they are not the same.

   Why should I expire
     For the fire of an eye,
   Slender waist or swan-like limb,
     Is't for them that I should die?

   The golden hair, the forehead thin,
     The chaste1 mien2, the gracious ease,
   The rounded heel, the languid3 tone,--
     Fools alone find death from these.	

 Thy sharp wit, thy perfect calm,
     Thy thin palm like foam o' the sea;
   Thy white neck, thy blue eye,
     I shall not die for thee.

   Woman, graceful as the swan,
     A wise man did nurture me.
   Little palm, white neck, bright eye,
     I shall not die for ye.

1. chaste: morally pure
2. mien: facial expression or attitude
3. languid: lacking enthusiasm	

5. What is this poem about? ____________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________________

6. What is the speaker's tone? ___________________________________________________________

Explain your answer using textual evidence.

	

"There will come Soft Rain"  
By Sara Teasdale

There will come soft rain and the smell of the ground,
And swallows circling with their shimmering sound;

And frogs in the pools singing at night,
And wild plum-trees in tremulous1 white;

Robins will wear their feathery fire
Whistling their whims on a low fence-wire.	

And not one will know of the war, not one
Will care at last when it is done.

Not one would mind, neither bird nor tree,
If mankind perished2 utterly3.

And Spring herself when she woke at dawn,
Would scarcely know that we were gone.

1. tremulous: trembling, quivering, or shaking
2. perished: died or expired
3. utterly: totally, completely

7. What is this poem about? ____________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________________

8. What is the speaker's tone? ___________________________________________________________

Explain your answer using textual evidence.