Carpe Diem.

Song Edmund Waller

1. What is the occasion of the poem? What literary device does the poet employ? Describe what you know of the speaker, the listener and the “she” referred to in the poem.
   The speaker is a young man pining for a woman. He uses personification of the rose, which he commands to go to the girl and tell of his love for her.
2. Paraphrase each of the four stanzas. Go lovely Rose and tell the girl that continually turns me down; That she now knows that I think she is as fair and sweet as she thinks you are (rose). With your beauty, tell this young, shy girl that if you had bloomed in a desert no one would be able to appreciate you. Beauty that can not be seen is of little worth. Ask her to come out of hiding, allow herself to be desired and not to be embarrassed when admired. Then die so she will realize that rare, lovely things do not last forever.
3. Describe the prosody, including stanza form, rhyme, meter, and notable metrical substitutions (spondees), as well as the structure of the poem. How do these choices help to reinforce the poem’s content?

The rhyme scheme of the poem is ababb. The spondees deliver orders to the rose, “go lovely”, “tell her”, “tell her”, “then die”. The structure of the poem is one long command to deliver a message. Each stanza is one sentence and delivers one separate command; there are four in total. They are, “Go” tell her I admire her beauty. “Tell her” that her beauty would be wasted if she continues to hide. “Tell her” to reveal herself. “Then die” so she would understand the urgency of my request.

Virtue George Herbert

1. Consider first Hebert’s use of metaphor and personification. In each case, what two unlike things are being compared, and what do they have in common?
First he compares a day to the marriage of the earth and sky. It is personified as cool and bright. The dew is personified as one who weeps for dusk and the death of daytime.
A rose is personified as so brilliant that it brings tears to the eyes of its observer. Spring is compared to flowers and a box of sweets, but as the other things in the poem short lived.
Lastly, a “sweet and virtuous soul” is compared to seasoned timber, which never parishes even when the souls of the world have “turned to coal”.

2. How is the poem structured, and how does this structure support its meaning? Consider parallelism, order and the turn in the poem.
The first three stanzas speak of objects are not eternal; that die. These three personified objects are spring, day, and rose. This emphasizes the last stanza as it states the one exception. Though all four things in the poem are “sweet”, the virtuous soul is the only thing that is immortal, even when all the world has died.

3. How does the prosody reinforce the poem’s meaning?
The first three stanzas provide examples of things that must die. Each ends with an almost identical line, “For thou/ And though/ And all must die.”

The similarities among these stanzas make the difference in the last stanza more apparent. It begins with Only, which signifies the turning point of the poem. There are two new rhymes and a new idea suggested and the last line does not end with die, but lives.