Page:Southern Life in Southern Literature.djvu/510

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.
492
SOUTHERN LIFE IN SOUTHERN LITERATURE


RICHARD HENRY WILDE


MY LIFE is LIKE THE SUMMER ROSE (PAGE 192)

This poem is expressive of the gentle melancholy that a perfectly happy, comfortable Southern youth of the earlier part of the nine teenth century was fond of assuming simply because such a Byronic affectation was fashionable. Tampa s desert strand: Florida.

QUESTIONS, i. Which of the three images used to suggest the transi-

toriness of life is the best and why? 2. What is the central thought of the poem? 3. Is the poem distinctively Southern in its scenery?

TO THE MOCKING-BIRD (PAGE 193)

Yorick: a jester at the Danish court whose skull, just dug up, leads Hamlet to moralizing (cf. "Hamlet," V, i). Abbot of Misrule: in olden days the leader of the revels at Christmas, who, in mockery of the Church s absolution of sins, abs olved his followers of all their wisdom. Jacques: one of Shakespeare s characters who morbidly delights in dwelling on the moral discrepancies of the world. Shake speare s spelling of the name is Jaques.

QUESTION. What aspects of the mocking bird s song are dwelt upon?


EDWARD COATE PINKNEY


SONG (PAGE 194)


QUESTIONS, i. What does the first stanza tell of the poet s experi

ence? 2. What does the second add to this? A SERENADE (PAGE 194) This poem was written in honor of Miss Georgiana McCausland, whom the poet afterwards married.

QUESTION. What is the thought of the poem?

A HEALTH (PAGE 195) This poem was written in honor of Mrs. Rebecca Somerville of Balti more. Professor Lounsbury gives this poem high praise in saying, " It