Poetry & Analysis
Selected Poems
Inspirational PoemsThe Fly
Little Fly
Thy summers play,
My thoughtless hand
Has brush’d away.
Am not I
A fly like thee?
Or art not thou
A man like me?
For I dance
And drink & sing;
Till some blind hand
Shall brush my wing.
If thought is life
And strength & breath;
And the want
Of thought is death;
Then am I
A happy fly,
If I live,
Or if I die.
Overview Short Summary
Blake’s short poem begins with a small thoughtless action. A fly is brushed away, and the speaker suddenly reflects on human fragility and careless mistakes.
Core Ideas Main Themes
- Thoughtless mistakes: The speaker’s hand acts before reflection.
- Self-awareness: The fly becomes a mirror for human life.
- Life lesson: The poem turns a tiny action into a meditation on thought, life, and death.
Emotional Effect Tone and Mood
The tone is simple, strange, and reflective. The mood is quiet because one small mistake opens a larger thought.
Literary Technique Imagery and Symbols
The fly, hand, wing, thought, breath, and death symbolize fragile life and careless action.
Poetic Form Rhyme Scheme and Structure
The short lines make the poem feel like a quick moment of realization.
The Fool's Prayer
The royal feast was done; the King
Sought some new sport to banish care,
And to his jester cried: “Sir Fool,
Kneel now, and make for us a prayer!”
The jester doffed his cap and bells,
And stood the mocking court before;
They could not see the bitter smile
Behind the painted grin he wore.
He bowed his head, and bent his knee
Upon the monarch’s silken stool;
His pleading voice arose: “O Lord,
Be merciful to me, a fool!
No pity, Lord, could change the heart
From red with wrong to white as wool;
The rod must heal the sin: but Lord,
Be merciful to me, a fool!
‘Tis not by guilt the onward sweep
Of truth and right, O Lord, we stay;
‘Tis by our follies that so long
We hold the earth from heaven away.
These clumsy feet, still in the mire,
Go crushing blossoms without end;
These hard, well-meaning hands we thrust
Among the heart-strings of a friend.
The ill-timed truth we might have kept—
Who knows how sharp it pierced and stung?
The word we had not sense to say—
Who knows how grandly it had rung!
Our faults no tenderness should ask;
The chastening stripes must cleanse them all;
But for our blunders—oh, in shame
Before the eyes of heaven we fall.
Earth bears no balsam for mistakes;
Men crown the knave, and scourge the tool
That did his will; but Thou, O Lord,
Be merciful to me, a fool!
The room was hushed; in silence rose
The King, and sought his gardens cool,
And walked apart, and murmured low,
“Be merciful to me, a fool!
Overview Short Summary
Sill’s poem is one of the most direct classic poems about mistakes and blunders. The fool asks mercy not only for sin, but for foolish, clumsy, well-meaning mistakes that wound others.
Core Ideas Main Themes
- Blunders: The poem names mistakes as clumsy actions and ill-timed words.
- Forgiveness: The repeated prayer asks mercy for foolishness.
- Self-awareness: Even the king recognizes himself in the fool’s prayer.
Emotional Effect Tone and Mood
The tone is humble, dramatic, and morally serious. The mood is moving because a court joke becomes a moment of confession.
Literary Technique Imagery and Symbols
Cap and bells, painted grin, clumsy feet, heart-strings, blossoms, and garden cool create a contrast between comedy and conscience.
Poetic Form Rhyme Scheme and Structure
The repeated prayer gives the poem emotional unity.
Sonnet 35: No more be grieved at that which thou hast done
No more be grieved at that which thou hast done:
Roses have thorns, and silver fountains mud;
Clouds and eclipses stain both moon and sun,
And loathsome canker lives in sweetest bud.
All men make faults, and even I in this,
Authorizing thy trespass with compare,
Myself corrupting, salving thy amiss,
Excusing thy sins more than thy sins are;
For to thy sensual fault I bring in sense—
Thy adverse party is thy advocate—
And ‘gainst myself a lawful plea commence:
Such civil war is in my love and hate
That I an accessory needs must be
To that sweet thief which sourly robs from me.
Overview Short Summary
Shakespeare’s sonnet speaks directly to someone who has done wrong. It is useful for poems about mistakes and forgiveness because it admits that all people make faults while also showing how complicated forgiveness can be.
Core Ideas Main Themes
- Forgiveness after mistakes: The speaker tries to soften the other person’s fault.
- Human imperfection: Roses, fountains, moon, sun, and buds all have flaws.
- Conflict: Love and hurt create a civil war inside the speaker.
Emotional Effect Tone and Mood
The tone is conflicted, forgiving, and wounded. The mood is tender but uneasy.
Literary Technique Imagery and Symbols
Thorns, mud, clouds, eclipses, canker, and civil war symbolize beauty mixed with fault.
Poetic Form Rhyme Scheme and Structure
The sonnet form holds both forgiveness and pain in a tight argument.
Sonnet 129: The expense of spirit in a waste of shame
The expense of spirit in a waste of shame
Is lust in action; and till action, lust
Is perjured, murderous, bloody, full of blame,
Savage, extreme, rude, cruel, not to trust;
Enjoyed no sooner but despised straight;
Past reason hunted; and no sooner had
Past reason hated, as a swallowed bait
On purpose laid to make the taker mad:
Mad in pursuit and in possession so;
Had, having, and in quest to have, extreme;
A bliss in proof, and proved, a very woe;
Before, a joy proposed; behind, a dream.
All this the world well knows; yet none knows well
To shun the heaven that leads men to this hell.
Overview Short Summary
This sonnet is about the kind of mistake that is desired before it is done and hated after it is finished. It fits regret-and-mistakes keywords because it shows impulse followed by shame.
Core Ideas Main Themes
- Impulse: The poem describes desire as past reason before and after action.
- Regret: What looked like joy becomes woe.
- Life lesson: Knowing a mistake is harmful does not always make it easy to avoid.
Emotional Effect Tone and Mood
The tone is intense, bitter, and urgent. The mood is disturbed because the poem shows a cycle people recognize but repeat.
Literary Technique Imagery and Symbols
Bait, madness, heaven, and hell symbolize temptation and painful consequence.
Poetic Form Rhyme Scheme and Structure
The sonnet’s compressed language mirrors the speed and violence of impulse.
The Collar
I struck the board, and cry’d, No more.
I will abroad.
What? shall I ever sigh and pine?
My lines and life are free; free as the rode,
Loose as the winde, as large as store.
Shall I be still in suit?
Have I no harvest but a thorn
To let me bloud, and not restore
What I have lost with cordiall fruit?
Sure there was wine
Before my sighs did drie it: there was corn
Before my tears did drown it.
Is the yeare onely lost to me?
Have I no bayes to crown it?
No flowers, no garlands gay? all blasted?
All wasted?
Not so, my heart: but there is fruit,
And thou hast hands.
Recover all thy sigh-blown age
On double pleasures: leave thy cold dispute
Of what is fit and not. Forsake thy cage,
Thy rope of sands,
Which petty thoughts have made, and made to thee
Good cable, to enforce and draw,
And be thy law,
While thou didst wink and wouldst not see.
Away; take heed:
I will abroad.
Call in thy deaths head there: tie up thy fears.
He that forbears
To suit and serve his need,
Deserves his load.
But as I rav’d and grew more fierce and wilde
At every word,
Me thoughts I heard one calling, Child:
And I reply’d, My Lord.
Overview Short Summary
Herbert’s poem captures a rash emotional outburst. The speaker rebels, argues, and grows fierce, but one gentle word changes the direction of the heart.
Core Ideas Main Themes
- Rash mistakes: The speaker’s anger pushes him toward rebellion.
- Correction: A single call brings him back.
- Inner conflict: The poem shows how quickly the heart can argue itself into a wrong path.
Emotional Effect Tone and Mood
The tone begins angry and restless, then becomes humbled. The mood shifts from agitation to surrender.
Literary Technique Imagery and Symbols
Board, road, wind, thorn, fruit, cage, rope, and child symbolize rebellion, argument, and return.
Poetic Form Rhyme Scheme and Structure
The poem’s broken, dramatic movement reflects the speaker’s emotional mistake.
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