Literary Elements Tone worksheet

 

Directions: Read each poem and then answer the following questions

Ellis Park

By Helen Hoyt

Little park that I pass through, I carry off a piece of you Every morning hurrying down To my work-day in the town; Carry you for country there To make the city ways more fair. I take your trees, And your breeze, Your greenness, Your cleanness, Some of your shade, some of your sky, Some of your calm as I go by; Your flowers to trim The pavements grim; Your space for room in the jostled street And grass for carpet to my feet.

Your fountains take and sweet bird calls To sing me from my office walls. All that I can see I carry off with me. But you never miss my theft, So much treasure you have left. As I find you, fresh at morning, So I find you, home returning -- Nothing lacking from your grace. All your riches wait in place For me to borrow On the morrow. Do you hear this praise of you, Little park that I pass through?

 

1. What is this poem about? ____________________________________________________________

 

___________________________________________________________________________________

 

2. What is the speaker's tone? ___________________________________________________________

 

 

Explain your answer using textual evidence.

 

 

In Trouble and Shame By D.H. Lawrence   I look at the swaling1 sunset  And wish I could go also  Through the red doors beyond the black-purple bar.  I wish that I could go  Through the red doors where I could put off  My shame like shoes in the porch  My pain like garments,  And leave my flesh discarded lying  Like luggage of some departed traveller  Gone one knows not where.

Then I would turn round  And seeing my cast-off body lying like lumber,  I would laugh with joy.               1. swaling: burning

 

3. What is this poem about? ____________________________________________________________

 

___________________________________________________________________________________

 

4. What is the speaker's tone? ___________________________________________________________

 

 

Explain your answer using textual evidence.

From Prelude

By Richard Aldington

 

How could I love you more?    I try to think of one lovely gift  No lover yet in all the world has found;  I think: If the cold somber1 gods  Were hot with love as I am  Could they not endow2 you with a star  And fix bright youth forever in your limbs?  Could they not give you all things that I lack?  You should have loved a god; I am but dust.  Yet no god loves as loves this poor frail dust.

1. somber: dark, dreary, joyless 2. endow: give someone something for free

 

5. What is this poem about? ____________________________________________________________

 

___________________________________________________________________________________

 

6. What is the speaker's tone? ___________________________________________________________

 

 

Explain your answer using textual evidence.

 

Lone Dog By Irene Rutherford McLeod    I'm a lean dog, a keen dog, a wild dog, and lone;  I'm a rough dog, a tough dog, hunting on my own;  I'm a bad dog, a mad dog, teasing silly sheep;  I love to sit and bay the moon, to keep fat souls from sleep.    I'll never be a lap dog, licking dirty feet,  A sleek dog, a meek dog, cringing for my meat,  Not for me the fireside, the well-filled plate,  But shut door, and sharp stone, and cuff and kick, and hate.

Not for me the other dogs, running by my side,  Some have run a short while, but none of them would bide1.  O mine is still the lone trail, the hard trail, the best,  Wide wind, and wild stars, and hunger of the quest!       1. bide: endure, bear, tolerate

 

7. What is this poem about? ____________________________________________________________

 

___________________________________________________________________________________

 

8. What is the speaker's tone? ___________________________________________________________

 

 

Explain your answer using textual evidence.