Raining
It's raining outside,
I hear the gentle drops fall
echoing softly.
Wednesday, February 3, 2010
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
My Favorite Sonnet
If We Must Die
If we must die, let it not be like hogs
Hunted and penned in an inglorious spot,
While round us bark the mad and hungry dogs,
Making their mock at our accursed lot.
If we must die, O let us nobly die,
So that our precious blood may not be shed
In vain; then even the monsters we defy
Shall be constrained to honor us though dead!
O kinsmen! we must meet the common foe!
Though far outnumbered let us show us brave,
And for their thousand blows deal one deathblow!
What though before us lies the open grave?
Like me we’ll face the murderous, cowardly pack,
Pressed to the wall, dying, but fighting back!
By Claude McKay
Claude McKay poem If WE Must Die is written as a Shakespearean sonnet. In this poem he uses an ababcdcdefefgg rhyme scheme. I never realized this poem was a sonnet until I noticed the 14 lines, the three quatrains and the couplet at the end. This sonnet is written in a iambic pentameter as a way to stay with traditional form. In this poem, I love the rhyme scheme that McKay uses to illustrate his message. By repeating the words if we must die, McKay shows the determination he has for black people fighting back and not just accepting the order of things. McKay wrote this poem in 1919, because he believed that African Americans deserve equal rights and protection from the white people attacking them. To me this poem means it is better to fight for what you believe in instead of running off like a coward.
If we must die, let it not be like hogs
Hunted and penned in an inglorious spot,
While round us bark the mad and hungry dogs,
Making their mock at our accursed lot.
If we must die, O let us nobly die,
So that our precious blood may not be shed
In vain; then even the monsters we defy
Shall be constrained to honor us though dead!
O kinsmen! we must meet the common foe!
Though far outnumbered let us show us brave,
And for their thousand blows deal one deathblow!
What though before us lies the open grave?
Like me we’ll face the murderous, cowardly pack,
Pressed to the wall, dying, but fighting back!
By Claude McKay
Claude McKay poem If WE Must Die is written as a Shakespearean sonnet. In this poem he uses an ababcdcdefefgg rhyme scheme. I never realized this poem was a sonnet until I noticed the 14 lines, the three quatrains and the couplet at the end. This sonnet is written in a iambic pentameter as a way to stay with traditional form. In this poem, I love the rhyme scheme that McKay uses to illustrate his message. By repeating the words if we must die, McKay shows the determination he has for black people fighting back and not just accepting the order of things. McKay wrote this poem in 1919, because he believed that African Americans deserve equal rights and protection from the white people attacking them. To me this poem means it is better to fight for what you believe in instead of running off like a coward.
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