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Showing posts from October, 2017

The Clod and the Pebble by William Blake (text and explanation)

  The Clod and the Pebble By William Blake   'Love seeketh not itself to please, Nor for itself hath any care, But for another gives its ease, And builds a heaven in hell's despair.' So sung a little clod of clay, Trodden with the cattle's feet; But a pebble of the brook Warbled out these meters meet: 'Love seeketh only Self to please, To bind another to its delight, Joys in another's loss of ease, And builds a hell in heaven's despite.' The poem was first published in William Blake’s collection of poems “Songs of Experience” in 1794. The poem contrasts two opposing views on love, represented by a soft clod of clay and a hard pebble. The clod represents the more optimistic and perhaps a naive perspective, which views love as a kind of radical selflessness and the willingness to sacrifice. On the other hand, the pebble declares love as pure selfishness. However, the poet does not validate any of the two view points and leaves it to th

It's Country for me by Patricia Demuth

It’s country for me    By Patricia Demuth 1. Joel is the youngest among Ed and Betty Holland’s ___________children. (a)  Eight (b) Five (c) six (d) Four 2. What is the name of Joel’s sister? ____________ (a) Stacey (b) Marty (c) Martha (d) Kathy 3. This year Kevin, twenty-two, will graduate from college in ____________. (a) Illinois (b) Chicago (c) New York (d) California 4. Joel’s sister is a ___________ nun. (a) Protestant (b) Catholic (c) Roman Catholic (d) Conservative 5. According to _________ farming is a good independent life. (a) Kevin (b) Kathy (c) Bill (d) Terry 6. F.D.R. stands for ___________. (a) Franklin Delano Robert (b) Frank D Roosevelt (c) Freddy De Roosevelt (d) Franklin Delano Roosevelt 7. The only time Joel minds doing farm work is during ______________. (a) Early Spring (b) Winter (c) Rainy season (d) Summer 8. If Joel had to live in the city for a year, he would mostly miss, _______________. (a)The Farm (b) The Land (c) The A

Tears of Nature and September, the First Day of School (Objective Type)

September, the First Day of School and Tear of Nature (Objective Type) 1. Each fall the children must _______together. (a) Play (b) Endure (c) Suffer (d) Tolerate 2. Even our tears belong to ___________. (a) Ritual (b) Ceremony (c) Sacramental (d) Occasion 3. Integers mean ___________. (a) Numbers (b) Alphabets (c) Roles (d) Facts 4. The _______ bowed down and then the stars bowed down before the dreaming of a little boy. (a) Bundles (b) Sheaf (c) Sheaves (d) Corns 5. Howard Nemerov was born in New York City in ______. (a) 1930 (b) 1920 (c) 1922 (d) 1910 6. Howard Nemerov won the _________ in 1977. (a) Noble Prize (b) Booker Prize (c) Hugo award (d) Pulitzer Prize 7. Headlines: One more species set to die      Keep it quiet……use _________,  (a) Diplomacy (b) Autocracy (c) Bureaucracy (d) Plutocracy 8. How can _________ start with me? (a) Demolition (b) Preservation (c) Conservation (d) Protection 9. You’d think that we’d ___________ as time goes

To Be or Not to Be

Hamlet’s 4 th soliloquy To be, or not to be? That is the question— Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, Or to take arms against a sea of troubles, And, by opposing, end them? To die, to sleep— No more—and by a sleep to say we end The heartache and the thousand natural shocks That flesh is heir to—’tis a consummation Devoutly to be wished! To die, to sleep. To sleep, perchance to dream—ay, there’s the rub, For in that sleep of death what dreams may come When we have shuffled off this mortal coil, Must give us pause. There’s the respect That makes calamity of so long life. For who would bear the whips and scorns of time, Th' oppressor’s wrong, the proud man’s contumely, The pangs of despised love, the law’s delay, The insolence of office, and the spurns That patient merit of   takes, When he himself might his quietus make With a bare bodkin? Who would fardels bear, To grunt and sweat u
Hamlet’s 4 th soliloquy To be, or not to be? That is the question— Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, Or to take arms against a sea of troubles, And, by opposing, end them? To die, to sleep— No more—and by a sleep to say we end The heartache and the thousand natural shocks That flesh is heir to—’tis a consummation Devoutly to be wished! To die, to sleep. To sleep, perchance to dream—ay, there’s the rub, For in that sleep of death what dreams may come When we have shuffled off this mortal coil, Must give us pause. There’s the respect That makes calamity of so long life. For who would bear the whips and scorns of time, Th' oppressor’s wrong, the proud man’s contumely, The pangs of despised love, the law’s delay, The insolence of office, and the spurns That patient merit of   takes, When he himself might his quietus make With a bare bodkin? Who would fardels bear, To grunt and sweat u
September, the First Day of School By Howard Nemerov My child and I hold hands on the way to school, And when I leave him at the first-grade door He cries a little but is brave; he does Let go. My selfish tears remind me how I cried before that door a life ago. I may have had a hard time letting go. Each fall the children must endure together What every child also endures alone: Learning the alphabet, the integers, Three dozen bits and pieces of a stuff So arbitrary, so peremptory, That worlds invisible and visible Bow down before it, as in Joseph's dream The sheaves bowed down and then the stars bowed down Before the dreaming of a little boy. That dream got him such hatred of his brothers As cost the greater part of life to mend, And yet great kindness came of it in the end. A school is where they grind the grain of thought, And grind the children who must mind the thought. It may be those two grindings are but one, As from the alphabet come