WISDOM POETRY CLASS - LESSON 1 SIMILES AND METAPHORS
SIMILE - is a direct comparison between two unlike subjects. The simile always uses the
words “like” or “as.”
Examples: WHAT TWO SUBJECTS ARE BEING COMPARED IN THE FOLLOWING
EXAMPLES?
“Waves crashing on the ocean look like knives.”
“Sadness falls inside me like the rain.”
“When she dances, she is as graceful as a swan.”
“In the ring, he fights like a bull.”
“He is as stubborn as a mule.”
“My days are like an evening shadow;
I wither away like grass” (2 similes) (Psalm 102:11)
“As for man, his days are like grass;
he flourishes like a flower of the field.” (Psalm 103: 15)
“Man is like a breath, his days are like a passing shadow.” (Psalm 144:4)
“As when some great forest fire is raging upon a mountain top and its light is seen afar,
even so as they marched the gleam of their flashed up into the firmament of heaven.” Homer, from The Illiad, Book II
“It opened to the ground, and looked into a most miserable corner of the neglected garden,
upon a rank ruin of cabbage-stalks, and one box tree that had been clipped round long ago,
like a pudding, and had a new growth at the top of it, out of shape and of a different colour,
as if that part of the pudding had stuck to the saucepan and got burnt. - Charles
Dickens, Great
Expectations
METAPHOR - is a direct comparison without using “like” or “as.”
Examples: AGAIN, WHAT TWO SUBJECTS ARE BEING COMPARED IN THE
FOLLOWING EXAMPLES?
“The giant’s steps were thunder as he ran toward Jack.”
“The pillow was a cloud when I put my head upon it after a long day.”
“The bar of soap was a slippery eel during the dog’s bath.”
“That defenseman is a bulldozer on the ice.”
“Our new Math teacher is a real dragon!”
“The Lord is my rock, and my fortress, and my deliverer, my God, my rock, in whom I take
refuge, my shield, and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold.” (Psalm 18:2)
“Thy word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.” (Psalm 119: 105)
“I am the vine; you are the branches.” - Christ (John 15:5)
“All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players
They have their exits and entrances.” - William Shakespeare As You Like It
Readings:
A Bird Came Down the Walk - Emily Dickinson
A bird came down the walk:
He did not know I saw;
He bit an angle-worm in halves
And ate the fellow, raw.
And then he drank a dew
From a convenient grass,
And then hopped sidewise to the wall
To let a beetle pass.
He glanced with rapid eyes
That hurried all abroad,-They looked like frightened beads, I thought;
He stirred his velvet head
Like one in danger; cautious,
I offered him a crumb,
And he unrolled his feathers
And rowed him softer home
Than oars divide the ocean,
Too silver for a seam,
Or butterflies, off banks of noon,
Leap, splashless, as they swim.
I Like to See it Lap the Miles - Emily Dickinson
I like to see it lap the miles,
And lick the valleys up,
And stop to feed itself at tanks;
And then, prodigious, step
Around a pile of mountains,
And, supercilious, peer
In shanties by the sides of roads;
And then a quarry pare
To fit its sides, and crawl between,
Complaining all the while
In horrid, hooting stanza;
Then chase itself down hill
And neigh like Boanerges;
Then, punctual as a star,
Stop - docile and omnipotent
At its own stable door.
There is No Frigate Like A Book - Emily Dickinson
There is no frigate like a book
To take us lands away,
Nor any coursers like a page
Of prancing poetry.
This traverse may the poorest take
Without oppress of toll;
How frugal is the chariot
That bears a human soul!
The Lovable Child - Emilie Poulsson
Frisky as a lambkin,
Busy as a beeThat's the kind of little girl
People like to see.
Modest as a violet,
As a rosebud sweetThat's the kind of little girl
People like to meet.
Bright as is a diamond,
Pure as any pearlEveryone rejoices in
Such a little girl.
Happy as a robin,
Gentle as doveThat's the kind of little girl
Everyone will love.
Fly away and seek her.
Little song of mine,
For I choose that very girl
As my Valentine.
A Child's Prayer - M. Bentham-Edwards
God make my life a little light,
Within the world to glow;
A tiny flame that burneth bright
Wherever I may go.
God make my life a little flower,
That giveth joy to all,
Content to bloom in native bower,
Although its place be small.
God make my life a little song,
That comforteth the sad;
That helpeth others to be strong,
And makes the singer glad.
God make my life a little staff,
Whereon the weak may rest,
That so what health and strength I have
May serve my neighbors best.
Fog - Carl Sandburg
THE fog comes
on little cat feet.
It sits looking
over harbor and city
on silent haunches
and then moves on.
Sonnet XVIII - William Shakespeare
Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date:
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimmed,
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature's changing course untrimmed:
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st,
Nor shall death brag thou wander'st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st,
So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.