Blog 16
“The Hippopotamus” byHilaire Belloc
This poem is written in one single stanza with quadtrains so the poem is very short. The first line and the third line first words are capitolized while the second and fourth line first words are not capitolized and they are also indentend. The poem also follows an aabb rhyme scheme although the rhyme is a slant rhyme. The words “Hippopatumus” and “platinum” sort of rhyme but they are not exact. The words “ones” and “em” also sort of rhyme but again are not exact. The content of the poem is kind of weird. The author says he uses platinum bullets to shoot a hippo because if he used leaden ones then the hide is going to flatten the bullet and the poet would have been unable to kill the hippo. I think that this poem may be a metaphor for something else or actually maybe it is taken literally, I really cant tell. The poem maybe is being a little bit sarcastic in saying how strong or how hard it is to kill a hippo. I can sense the sarcasm in the line “his hide is sure to flatten em”. I think that the poem follows an unstressed then stressed and unstressed and stressed pattern. “I shoot the hippopatamus”–”I” should be unstressed while “shoot” should be stressed and then so forth. If you compare this poem to prosaic context the entire poem could be considered a sentence since it is so short.
“Eight O’Clock” by A.E Housman
This poem is written into two stanzas with quadtrains within each stanza. The first line and the third line rhyme while the second and fourth lines not only rhyme but are intended as well. I think that the author does this in order to make the ryhme scheme more obvious. This poem is really good. I think it is about a man getting hanged at eight o clock. The second stanza indicates that the character in the poem is about to get hanged because he uses imagery lines like “strapped, noosed, nighing his hour”, “cursed his luck”. I really like how the author doesnt come out and say that the man is going to die but instead she gives hint to it. I also like, even though its kind of sad, the imagery that the author uses to paint the scene. “heard the steeple”, “market place and people” all paint the scene of which the man is going to die in. I think that it is really interesting how the author entitled the poem “Eight O’Clock” because you would think that he would have titled it something that would have indicated something about the man’s death. This title is so subtle yet I think it is cool how significant the title how she used it to tell the time of the man’s death even though she doesnt mention the time again throughout the poem. She only mentions the clock. I think that this poem follows a unstressed then stressed pattern of voice. “He stood and heard the steeple”–”He” should be unstressed while “stood” should be stressed and so on in that pattern. I like this poem.
“Upon Julia’s Voice” by Robert Herrick
This poem is written into one single stanza with quadrains within it. It follows an aa bb rhyme scheme but the ryhme is a slant rhyme because the words are not exact. ‘voice” and “noise” in a way kind of rhyme but not really and “Chamber” and “amber” look like the ryhme and they kind of do but not exactly so the poem has a slant rhyme sequence. This poem has a lot of alliterations like “so smooth, so sweet, so silv’ry” and “melting melodious”. In the line “So smooth, so sweet, so silv’ry is thy voice” follows an unstressed and then stressed pattern because “So” should be unstressed while “smooth” should be stressed and the poem continues to follow that sequence. You can tell that this poem was written a long time ago because the author uses old english vocabulary like “thy” and “thee” which people do not use these days. You can tell that the author likes Julia’s voice because he uses positive vocabulary like “sweet” “smooth” “silv’ry” and uses lines like “melting melodious words” and “the damned would make no noise” which all indicate a positive reaction toward Julia and her voice. It is interesting however that the author uses parenthesis for “(walking in thy chamber)” because I am not really sure of the signifigance of putting that phrase in there is for. This poem flows easily and I kind of like it.
