The Negro Speaks of Rivers

I’ve known rivers:

I’ve known rivers ancient as the world and older than the flow of human blood in human veins.

My soul has grown deep like the rivers.

I bathed in the Euphrates when dawns were young.

I built my hut near the Congo and it lulled me to sleep.

I looked upon the Nile and raised the pyramids above it.

I heard the singing of the Mississippi when Abe Lincoln went down to New Orleans, and I’ve seen its muddy bosom turn all golden in the sunset.

I’ve known rivers:

Ancient, dusky rivers.

My soul has grown deep like the rivers.

Langston Hughes 



Analysis:

    From the title of this free verse, we can tell that it is written from the perspective of an African-American. 
    The first-person use of "I" is not necessarily Langston Hughes himself, but Africans as a whole. The river is a symbol of events that has happened as time passed by. Africa is believed to be the place where human species originated, so from a scientific perspective, Africans have existed longer than any other ethic groups. They were not respectfully treated by other races but were discriminated for a period of time. Rivers are ancient, so in this poem, the river is a representation of the history of Africans; their views and experiences.









 

Chicago

Chicago

Hog Butcher for the World,
Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat,
Player with Railroads and the Nation's Freight Handler;
Stormy, husky, brawling,
City of the Big Shoulders:  5

They tell me you are wicked and I believe them, for I
     have seen your painted women under the gas lamps
     luring the farm boys.
And they tell me you are crooked and I answer: Yes, it is
     true I have seen the gunman kill and go free to kill again.
And they tell me you are brutal and my reply is:
     On the faces of women and children I have seen the
     marks of wanton hunger.
And having answered so I turn once more to those who
     sneer at this my city, and I give them back the sneer
     and say to them:
Come and show me another city with lifted head singing
     so proud to be alive and coarse and strong and cunning.  10
Flinging magnetic curses amid the toil of piling job on job,
     here is a tall bold slugger set vivid against the little soft cities;

Fierce as a dog with tongue lapping for action, cunning
     as a savage pitted against the wilderness,

Bareheaded,
Shoveling,
Wrecking,  15
Planning,
Building, breaking, rebuilding,

Under the smoke, dust all over his mouth, laughing with
     white teeth,
Under the terrible burden of destiny laughing as a young
     man laughs,
Laughing even as an ignorant fighter laughs who has
     never lost a battle,  20
Bragging and laughing that under his wrist is the pulse,
     and under his ribs the heart of the people,

Laughing!

Laughing the stormy, husky, brawling laughter of
     Youth, half-naked, sweating, proud to be Hog
Butcher, Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat, Player with
     Railroads and Freight Handler to the Nation.

Carl Sandburg


Analysis: 

This poem describes the development, life, and soul of the city Chicago. The free verse begins with, “Hog Butcher for the World, Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat, Player with Railroads...” ; a presentment of the common jobs of men in Chicago. The first stanza is a brief description of the city. “Stormy, husky, brawling”, we can already see that Chicago is a dirty and noisy city of industrialization.

           

They tell me you are wicked and I believe them, for I

have seen your painted women under the gas lamps

luring the farm boys.  6

And they tell me you are crooked and I answer: Yes, it is

                        True I have seen the gunman kill and go free to kill again.  7

            And they tell me you are brutal and my reply is:

                        On the faces of women and children I have seen the

                        marks of wanton hunger.  8

From the words above, we can tell that the author is not from Chicago but he probably has visited Chicago before (words in bold) and has heard and seen many social issues existing at that specific time; prostitution, crime, and hunger. Although there were uses of first person tense, but no opinions of the city were expressed in the first eight lines. Starting from the ninth line, there is a significant change in tone and beliefs. Sandburg says that there is no other city where people can sing proudly to be alive, and being satisfied of what they have. He opposed the “wicked, crooked, and brutal” image of Chicago, and described the spirit of the city and its people.

            Come and show me another city with lifted head singing

                        so proud to be alive and coarse and strong and cunning

            Fierce as a dog with tongue lapping for action, cunning

as a savage pitted against the wilderness,

Bareheaded,

Shoveling,

Wrecking,  15

Planning,

Building, breaking, rebuilding,

Under the smoke, dust all over his mouth, laughing with

                        white teeth,

Under the terrible burden of destiny laughing as a young

                        man laughs,

Laughing even as an ignorant fighter laughs who has

                        never lost a battle,  20

Bragging and laughing that under his wrist is the pulse,

                        and under his ribs the heart of the people,

           

Laughing!

The bold lines show that the people of Chicago are always positive, real, and ready for action. To the workers, they are proud of what they do and satisfied of what they receive in return. A simple life will bring people more pureness and kindness, less of complaints and enviousness. From the perspective of Carl Sandburg, Chicago is a purer and happier city than anywhere else.

           

The Caged Skylark

        The Caged Skylark

As a dare-gale skylark scanted in a dull cage,
    Man's mounting spirit in his bone-house, mean house, dwells —
    That bird beyond the remembering his free fells;
This in drudgery, day-labouring-out life's age.
Though aloft on turf or perch or poor low stage
    Both sing sometímes the sweetest, sweetest spells,
    Yet both droop deadly sómetimes in their cells
Or wring their barriers in bursts of fear or rage.

Not that the sweet-fowl, song-fowl, needs no rest —
Why, hear him, hear him babble & drop down to his nest,
    But his own nest, wild nest, no prison.

Man's spirit will be flesh-bound, when found at best,
But uncumberèd: meadow-down is not distressed
    For a rainbow footing it nor he for his bónes rísen.


                Gerard Manley Hopkins


Analysis:

-sonnet [octave (abbaabba rhyme) and sestet (ccdccd rhyme)

Birds are meant to be free and so are humans. Hopkins described the hopelessness of a caged skylark, but the meaning of the poem describes a situation that everyone would face in a certain point of their life. There are times in our lives when reality forces us to comprise and go against our own will, but we can't stop fighting for ourselves. Who knows which day the cage is forgotten to be locked; if you never try, you'll never know. 

"But his own nest, wild nest, no prison." (second stanza)

 A skylark's nest in the wild may not be as luxury as a cage, but at least it is free, and that is more valuable than anything else.

The rhyming in this poem also created a suitable tempo and feel for this poem.


"Not that the sweet-fowl, song-fowl, needs no rest —

Why, hear him, hear him babble & drop down to his nest,
    But his own nest, wild nest, no prison."

In the beginning of this poem, Hopkins described how a skylark desire freedom. However, from the lines above, Hopkins also mentioned that it need a home. Having freedom doesn't mean you'll have a home and having a home doesn't mean you'll have freedom. What is the definition of home and freedom? I'm sure everyone's answer would be different. Hopkins's The Caged Skylark allow readers to think about life, happiness, and freedom from a deep and personal perspective.

Departure in the Dark

        Departure in the Dark

 Nothing so sharply reminds a man he is mortal
 As leaving a place
 In a winter morning's dark, the air on his face
 Unkind as the touch of sweating metal:
 Simple goodbyes to children or friends become
 A felon's numb
 Farewell, and love that was a warm, a meeting place–
 Love is the suicide's grave under the nettles.

 Gloomed and clemmed as if by an imminent ice-age
 Lies the dear world
 Of your street-strolling, field-faring. The senses, curled
 At the dead end of a shrinking passage,
 Care not if close the inveterate hunters creep,
 And memories sleep
 Like mammoths in lost caves. Drear, extinct is the world,
 And has no voice for consolation or presage.

 There is always something at such times of the passover,
 When the dazed heart
 Beats for it knows not what, whether you part
 From home or prison, acquaintance or lover–
 Something wrong with the time-table, something unreal
 In the scrambled meal
 And the bag ready packed by the door, as though the heart
 Has gone ahead, or is staying here forever.

 No doubt for the Israelites that early morning
 It was hard to be sure
 If home were prison or prison home: the desire
 Going forth meets the desire returning.
 This land, that had cut their pride down to the bone
 Was now their own
 By ancient deeds of sorrow. Beyond, there was nothing sure
 But a desert of freedom to quench their fugitive yearnings.

 At this blind hour the heart is informed of nature's
 Ruling that man
 Should be nowhere a more tenacious settler than
 Among wry thorns and ruins, yet nurture
 A seed of discontent in his ripest ease.
 There's a kind of release
 And a kind of torment in every goodbye for every man–
 And will be, even to the last of his dark departures.


 Cecil Day Lewis