Easter-wings by George Herbert

When first approaching the poem, I notice that it is written sideways. Also, it is in the shape of wings. This poem is deffinately not a traditional straight line, boring piece of work. The poem talks about the Lord giving us wealth and abundance in the beginging of life (Adam and Eve). But, how foolishly we lost the abundance. Through the Fall in the Garden of Eden is the main issue that George Herbert is approaching. When Adam and Eve partook of the forbidden fruit they gained knowledge which shut them off from the presence of the Lord. For the rest of mankind, everyone must work for their food and must labor dillegently because of Adam and Eves sin. He talks of decaying more and more and this could mean how we lost the ability to be immortal. We now decay in the ground because we are mortals. It also talks of how poor he became, i'm guessing when he say 'he' he means mankind. Adam and Eve lost all the beauty and glory from God so they became poor in spirit. At different points in the poem he relates to actual wings; one of these being the larks. Larks are old world birds that sing sweet songs. Another point is; "if I imp my wings on thine, affliction shall advance the flight in me". Imp means grafting additional feather unto the wings of a hawk to imporve its flight. Moving on from the wings it goes into flight. I like to think of it like we are all birds of the Lord, but we need his help to soar. Overall great poem, lots of hidden meanings throughout it.

Harlem by Langston Hughes

This poem is short consisting of only 7 stanzas. Most of the stanzas are questions. The rhymes are sun, run ..sore, over..meat, sweet. Langston Hughes starts this poem off with a intense question; "What happens to a dream deffered?" (what happens to a dream postponed, or delayed). He then choses to answer that question with more questions throught the poem; "Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun?". While we are trying to figure out what happens to a dream deffered, he keeps giving us more things to think about. From running, to sores, to sugar, to sags in heavy loads and the final question: "Or does it explode?". We don't know what happens to dreams when they are interrupted. They could go on in other places of the mind or wait for us to fall back asleep and continue. Maybe Langston is talking about dreams as in goals or things we look forward to. Do our goals in life dry up, fester, rot, crust over, sag or explode? We can't figure out what he is trying to mean because he answers each question with another question. I believe he wants us to believe that things we think too hard about explode. He gives us all those questions to contemplate and then he drops us off a cliff with the explode question. I think he doesn't want us to get a brain haemorrhage, but he does want to confuse us with what meaning it could be. I like how simple the poem looks, but it spans out into a million possibilities.

We Wear the Mask by Paul Laurence Dunbar

This poem has great imagery throughout the stanzas. The rhymes throught the poem are lies, eyes... guiles, smile, sighs, while, cries, arise, vile, mile, other-wise and over-wise (these don't rhyme exactly but it uses the "I" in its pronunciation). Paul Dunbar attacked the topic of hidding who we really are, in this poem. It starts out talking about: "the mask that grins and lies". Meaning we all may seem calm on the outside, but on the inside we are full of lies. Then it says, "the debt we pay to human guile" which means the things we do for humanity's deciet. "With torn and bleeding hearts we smile" also has to do with seeming calm on the outside but really fighting a war on the inside. The next lines kind of confront why we hide behind masks. It says we shouldn't because the world is not "over-wise" or over knowledgable. It basically says the world makes mistakes so why can't we? It then jumps back into the hiding part saying: "nay, let them only see us, while we wear the mask". We pray to God from our tortured souls and then we turn around and wear the mask. We should be humble and show our weaknesses and take off the mask. I also think this poem has to do with people not being who they really are. They hide behind a mask their whole lives pretending to be someone they are not. I like how it tells the world to dream otherwise, basically take off that mask and show the world for who you are.