Wednesday Poetry Unit 3 - Comprehension Questions

Wednesday Poetry Unit 3

Comprehension Questions

​The Crescent Moon

​

​Slipping softly through the sky

​Little horned, happy moon,

​Can you hear me up so high?

​Will you come down soon?

​

​On my nursery window-sill

​Will you stay your steady flight?

​And then float away with me

​Through the summer night?

​Brushing over tops of trees,

​Playing hide and seek with stars,

​Peeping up through shiny clouds

​At Jupiter or Mars.

​

​I shall fill my lap with roses

​Gathered in the milky way,

​All to carry home to mother.

​Oh! What will she say!

​

​Little rocking, sailing moon,

​Do you hear me shout--Ahoy!

​Just a little nearer, moon,

​To please a little boy.

​ --Amy Lowell

Open Ended

In "The Crescent Moon," what does the speaker of the poem want the moon to do?

​The Caterpillar

​Under this loop of honeysuckle,

​A creeping, colored caterpillar,

​I gnaw the fresh green hawthorn spray,

​I nibble it leaf by leaf away.

​

​Down beneath grow dandelions,

​Daises, old-man's-looking-glasses;

​Rooks flap croaking across the lane,

​I eat and swallow and eat again.

​

Here come raindrops helter-skelter;

I munch and nibble unregarding;

Hawthorn leaves ​are juicy and firm.

​I'll mind by business: I'm a good worm.

​When I'm old, tired, melancholy,

​I'll build a leaf-green mausoleum

​Close by, here on the lovely spray,

​And die and dream the ages away.

​

​Some say worms win resurrection,

​With white wings beating flitter-flutter,

​But wings or a sound sleep, why should I care?

​Either way I'll miss my share.

​

​Under this loop of honeysuckle,

​A hungry, hairy caterpillar,

​I crawl on my high and swinging seat,

​And eat, eat, eat--as one ought to eat.

​ --Robert Graves

Open Ended

From "The Caterpillar," write one example of repetition used in this poem.

Open Ended

In the first stanza of "The Caterpillar," what does gnaw mean? (You may use a dictionary.)

Open Ended

In the second stanza of "The Caterpillar," what are rooks? (Try to figure it out from the context clues in the poem, then see if you were right by using a dictionary.)

Open Ended

A mausoleum ("The Caterpillar" stanza 4) is a building that holds tombs for the dead. The caterpillar isn't going to build a mausoleum of the type we know. What is he going to build?

Open Ended

When the caterpillar says "Either way I'll miss my share," what is he talking about? (What will he miss his share of?)

​Afternoon on a Hill

​I will be the gladdest thing

​Under the sun!

​I will touch a hundred flowers

​And not pick one.

​And when lights begin to show

​Up from the town,

​I will mark which must be mine,

​And then start down!

​--Edna St. Vincent Millay

​I will look at cliffs and clouds

​With quiet eyes,

​Watch the wind bow down the grass,

​And the grass rise.

Open Ended

In the last stanza of "Afternoon on a Hill," the speaker says, "I will mark which must be mine." What does she mean?