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Poem 1

London by William Blake

London is a four-stanza poem that has relatively short lines. The poem has a definite rhythm. It has a rhyme scheme, which is abab cdcd efef ghgh. It is a four stanza poem, each with four lines. The poem describes the speaker’s reactions to the people that he meets and the sights that he sees in the streets of London. Blake uses language that is rich in meaning. As indicated in the notes, which go along with the poem, many of the words have connotations, or overtones, that Blake uses to suggest his feelings about the city of London and its government and the way the people have been denied their freedom by the king. For example the streets are “chartered” or restricted. He hears the “ mind forged manacles” or shackles in the voices of the men. In other words everyone feels enslaved there. The churches are “blackening,” either turning black from the soot or figuratively turning black from the corruption of using chimney sweeps to clean them. Blake also describes the way prostitution “plagues” marriage and contaminates the new born babies. Other word choices show the tone of this poem to be somber as well. Some of these include “marks of weakness marks of woe,” repeating the word “cry,” “sigh,” and “curse.” The language of the poem and the images stress Blake’s sense of horror and disgust at the way the speaker sees London in this poem. There is no sense of hope for the future or love for the city.

Poem 2

The winter evening settles down by T.S. Elliot

The poem is not written in stanzas form or verse form. The lines vary from short to very short. The line breaks don’t always reflect the end of a sentence or the end of a thought. It is not always in complete sentences. There is a rhyme scheme although it is irregular and some lines don’t rhyme. The rhyme scheme is abcbddefefegg. The language is simple. Some of the words date the poem as in the past like chimney pots and cab horse. The tone of the poem is dreary and cheerless. The winter evening is described in the terms of routines of the people who live there. The time is six o’clock. It is the “burnt out ends of smoky days,” when the workers are coming home from the factories for their dinner. The description of the winter showers spreading the “grimy leaves” and “newspapers from vacant lots” emphasizes the dirtiness and poverty of the area, as do the “broken blinds and chimney pots.” Everyone has gone inside his or her poor little house and the lights come on. No one is going out for entertainment and fun. Therefore, the cab-horse is lonely.