Honor'd and bless'd in their shadow might grow!

Loud should Clan-Alpine then

Ring from her deepmost glen,

"Roderigh, Vich Alpine dhu, ho! ierroe!"

EXERCISES: FIGURES OF SPEECH *

-SCOTT

1 Here are similes to study. In each case name the two things compared, the point of resemblance, and the word used to denote likeness. Which similes present pictures? Which, if any, suggest stories? Which take you to nature? to books? Which, if any, seem commonplace? Consider in each case whether the comparison is appropriate. One of the quotations has been called "the most majestic simile in modern poetry"; can you find it? What figures other than simile do you discover?

1. Burns Marmion's swarthy cheek like fire.

2. I wandered lonely as a cloud

-SCOTT

That floats on high o'er vales and hills.-WORDSWORTH

3. Words are like leaves; and where they most abound Much fruit of sense beneath is rarely found.

4. I fear thee, ancient Mariner!

I fear thy skinny hand!

And thou art long, and lank, and brown,

As is the ribbed sea-sand.

-POPE

-COLERIDGE

5. It [the Nile] flows through old, hush Egypt and its sands Like some grave mighty thought, threading a stream.

-HUNT

6. Between two worlds life hovers like a star,
Twixt night and morn, upon the horizon's verge.

-BYRON

*In the Appendix will be found a section devoted to figures of speech.

Your nerves are all chain'd up in alabaster,
And you a statue, or as Daphne was,
Root-bound, that fled Apollo.

-MILTON

10. And fast through the midnight dark and drear,

Through the whistling sleet and snow,

Like a sheeted ghost the vessel swept

Tow'rds the reef of Norman's Woe. -LONGFELLOW

11. Life, like a dome of many-colored glass, Stains the white radiance of eternity.

12. Thus Satan, talking to his nearest mate,
With head uplift above the wave, and eyes
That sparkling blazed; his other parts besides
Prone on the flood, extended long and large,
Lay floating many a rood, in bulk as huge
As whom the fables name of monstrous size,
Titanian or Earth-born, that warred on Jove,
Briareos or Typhon, whom the den

By ancient Tarsus held, or that sea-beast
Leviathan, which God of all his works
Created hugest that swim the ocean-stream.
Him, haply slumbering on the Norway foam,
The pilot of some small, night-foundered skiff,
Deeming some island, oft, as seamen tell,
With fixed anchor in his scaly rind,
Moors by his side under the lea, while night
Invests the sea, and wished morn delays.

-SHELLEY

-MILTON

13. But Beauty, like the fair Hesperian tree
Laden with blooming gold, had need the guard
Of dragon watch with unenchanted eye,
To save her blossoms and defend her fruit
From the rash hand of bold Incontinence.

14. The princes applaud with a furious joy;

-MILTON

And the King seized a flambeau with zeal to destroy.
Thaïs led the way

To light him to his prey,

And like another Helen, fired another Troy! -DRYDEN

2 Study the following examples of metaphor and personification, in each case naming the two things compared. Expand each metaphor, if possible, into a simile. Which suggest pictures? Do any suggest stories? Which do you like best? What figures other than metaphor and personification do you discover?

But screw your courage to the sticking-place,
And we'll not fail.

-SHAKESPEARE

2. Give me three days to melt her fancy. -TENNYSON

3. The panting City cried to the Sea,
"I am faint with heat,-oh breathe on me!"

6. I heard the trailing garments of the Night
Sweep through her marble halls!

I saw her sable skirts all fringed with light
From the celestial walls.

-COLERIDGE

-LONGFELLOW

7. Their hands and faces were all badged with blood. -SHAKESPEARE

8. Sir, I was courteous, every phrase well-oiled.

-TENNYSON

9.

those linen cheeks of thine

Are counsellors to fear.

-SHAKESPEARE

10. St. Agnes' Eve-Ah, bitter chill it was!

-KEATS

11. Red Battle stamped his foot, and nations felt the shock.

12. And peace went with them one and all,
And each calm pillow spread;

But guilt was my grim chamberlain,
That lighted me to bed;

And drew my midnight curtains round
With fingers bloody red!

-BYRON

-HOOD

13. Day hath put on his jacket, and around
His burning bosom buttoned it with stars.
Here will I lay me on the velvet grass,
That is like a padding to earth's meagre ribs,
And hold communion with the things about me.
Ah me! how lovely is the golden braid
That binds the skirt of night's descending robe!
The thin leaves, quivering on their silken threads,
Do make a music like to rustling satin,

As the light breezes smooth their downy nap.

-HOLMES

3 Here are examples of many kinds of figures and rhetorical devices employed to gain clearness, force, and beauty. Name each figure or device, and consider carefully whether it is effective.

1. Sand-strewn caverns, cool and deep,
Where the winds are all asleep; .
Where great whales come sailing by,
Sail and sail, with unshut eye,
Round the world for ever and aye.

-ARNOLD

2. Methought I heard a voice cry "Sleep no more!
Macbeth does murder sleep,-the innocent sleep,
Sleep that knits up the ravell'd sleave of care,
The death of each day's life, sore labor's bath,
Balm of hurt minds, great nature's second course,
Chief nourisher in life's feast."
-SHAKESPEARE

3. Oh, thou art fairer than the evening air, Clad in the beauty of a thousand stars.

4. I will kill thee a hundred and fifty ways.

5. Full fifty thousand muskets bright Led by old warriors trained in fight.

6. O for a beaker full of the warm South.

-MARLOWE

-SHAKESPEARE

-CROKER

-KEATS

7. God made the country, and man made the town.

-COWPER

8. Like the leaves of the forest when summer is green, That host with their banners at sunset were seen; Like the leaves of the forest when autumn has blown, That host on the morrow lay withered and strown.

-BYRON

9. Full many a glorious morning have I seen Flatter the mountain-top with sovereign eye. —SHAKESPEARE

10. Thus march'd the chief, tremendous as a god; Grimly he smiled; earth trembled as he strode. —POPE

11. A thousand years their cloudy wings expand Around me.

-BYRON

12. Was this the face that launched a thousand ships
And burnt the topless towers of Ilium?—
Sweet Helen, make me immortal with a kiss.

13. Wee, modest, crimson-tippèd flow'r,

Thou's met me in an evil hour;

-MARLOWE