QUESTIONS AND SUGGESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION

1. Tell, in your own words, the

simple story of this poem. 2. What is an allegory? Why is this poem an allegory?

3. How were the common

Solomon represent?

6. What effect did Solomon's thoughtfulness for these tiny creatures have upon the queen?

people treated by kings 7. What effect did Solomon's

and nobles in olden times?

What only were they be-
Ilieved fit for?

4. What is meant by the ants

in the poem?

action have
followers?

upon his

8. What idea of justice and

mercy may we get from this poem?

5. What did the Queen of 9. Which two stanzas tell the

Sheba think about the
common people? Whom 10.
may the Queen of Sheba
represent? What kind of
good people does King

true meaning of the poem? In America, do we agree with the Queen of Sheba or with King Solomon? Explain your answer.

John Greenleaf Whittier, often called the " Quaker Poet,' was born in 1807, near Haverhill, Massachusetts. His boyhood home was a busy, economical one.

Young Whittier worked all of one winter making slippers, which he sold for eight cents a pair, to pay his next term's school dues. He calculated so closely every item of expense that he knew before the beginning of the term that he would have twenty-five cents to spare at its close, and he actually had just that amount left. While he was still "a barefoot boy," a copy of the poems of Robert Burns fell into his hands, and, inspired by the verse of the plowboy of Scotland, he resolved to become a poet. "SnowBound" is his best poem descriptive of country life, and it is the best poem of this type written in America.

Whittier never married. He died at Hampton Falls, New Hampshire, in 1892, in the eighty-fifth year of his age.

AN APRIL DAY

CAROLINE B. SOUTHEY

We should be able to see easily the pictures in this poem, for every one of us has lived through many such April days.

Read the first stanza over in silence, seeing every picture, until you know perfectly what Mrs. Southey is telling you. Then shut your eyes and try hard actually to see all of it. It is in your memory, every bit of it. The "garnered fullness" of the clouds is the water that the sun had gathered, or "garnered," into the cloud.

Then read the second stanza in silence. Can you realize the quietness? It was so still that she almost believed she heard"The leaves and blossoms growing."

Now hear the rain in stanza 4. How do you know there was no wind?

Read in silence stanza 5. What does it mean?

Now let us imagine that we go out to look at what is happening on this April day. Let us look at the honeysuckle buds. What has happened to them? Can you see them now? (Stanza 6.) What has happened to the thorn bush?

Try to see in your mind the lilacs in stanza 7. Unless you see in your mind what Mrs. Southey is telling you, you have not read at all, even though you have stood up in class and pronounced the words correctly. Reading is seeing the images and getting the thoughts which the poet had.

Read now stanza 8, trying to see the imagine the "fragrance" that fills the air.

66

steamy air," and to

In stanza 9, try to think what "fruitful stores "

are. Water

5

10

is a large part of all vegetables and fruit. Where does it come from?

Notice what a perfect description is found in the last two lines of stanza 9.

Notice how carefully April is described in stanzas 9 and 10. The meanings of the following words will help you to understand the poem:

The rain's continuous sound: the unceasing beating of the raindrops.

The lilac's cleaving cones: the unopened lilac buds, the leaves or petals of which cleave

tightly together in the form of a cone. rife: plentiful.

a momentary deluge (děl'ůj): a very brief and heavy fall of rain.

AN APRIL DAY

1

All day the low-hung clouds have dropped
Their garnered fullness down;

All day that soft, gray mist hath wrapped
Hill, valley, grove, and town.

2

There has not been a sound to-day
To break the calm of Nature;
Nor motion, I might almost say,

Of life, or living creature;

3

Of waving bough, or warbling bird,
Or cattle faintly lowing;

I could have half believed I heard
The leaves and blossoms growing.

4

I stood to hear I love it well

The rain's continuous sound;

Small drops, but thick and fast they fell,
Down straight into the ground.

5

For leafy thickness is not yet
Earth's naked breast to screen;
Though every dripping branch is set
With shoots of tender green.

6

Sure, since I looked at early morn,

Those honeysuckle buds

Have swelled to double growth; that thorn
Hath put forth larger studs.

7

That lilac's cleaving cones have burst,

The milk-white flowers revealing;

Even now upon my senses first

Methinks their sweets are stealing.

8

The very earth, the steamy air,
Is all with fragrance rife;