Poetry & Analysis
Short Repetition Poems
Inspirational PoemsHow Do I Love Thee?
How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and Ideal Grace.
I love thee to the level of everyday’s
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.
I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;
I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.
I love thee with the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood’s faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints,—I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life!—and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.
Overview Short Summary
The speaker measures love through repeated statements that show devotion as spiritual, daily, free, pure, and lasting.
Core Ideas Main Themes
- Devotion: The repeated “I love thee” deepens the feeling instead of merely repeating it.
- Enduring love: The poem imagines love continuing beyond death.
Literary Device How Repetition Works
This sonnet is a strong example of anaphora because several lines begin with the repeated phrase “I love thee.”
Remember
Remember me when I am gone away,
Gone far away into the silent land;
When you can no more hold me by the hand,
Nor I half turn to go yet turning stay.
Remember me when no more day by day
You tell me of our future that you planned:
Only remember me; you understand
It will be late to counsel then or pray.
Yet if you should forget me for a while
And afterwards remember, do not grieve:
For if the darkness and corruption leave
A vestige of the thoughts that once I had,
Better by far you should forget and smile
Than that you should remember and be sad.
Overview Short Summary
Rossetti’s speaker asks to be remembered after death, then gently allows the beloved to forget if remembering causes pain.
Core Ideas Main Themes
- Memory: The repeated word “remember” is central to the poem’s emotional conflict.
- Love and release: The final lines turn remembrance into kindness rather than obligation.
Literary Device How Repetition Works
The repeated command “Remember me” sets up the poem’s main idea, while the later contrast with “forget” creates emotional balance.
Echo
Come to me in the silence of the night;
Come in the speaking silence of a dream;
Come with soft rounded cheeks and eyes as bright
As sunlight on a stream;
Come back in tears,
O memory, hope, love of finished years.
O dream how sweet, too sweet, too bitter sweet,
Whose wakening should have been in Paradise,
Where souls brimfull of love abide and meet;
Where thirsting longing eyes
Watch the slow door
That opening, letting in, lets out no more.
Yet come to me in dreams, that I may live
My very life again though cold in death:
Come back to me in dreams, that I may give
Pulse for pulse, breath for breath:
Speak low, lean low,
As long ago, my love, how long ago.
Overview Short Summary
The speaker longs for a lost beloved to return through dreams and memory.
Core Ideas Main Themes
- Longing: Repeated appeals create the feeling of desire returning again and again.
- Dream and memory: The poem treats dreams as the only place where lost love can return.
Literary Device How Repetition Works
The repeated word “Come” works like an emotional call, making the poem a clear example of repetition and anaphora.
Break, Break, Break
Break, break, break,
On thy cold gray stones, O Sea!
And I would that my tongue could utter
The thoughts that arise in me.
O, well for the fisherman’s boy,
That he shouts with his sister at play!
O, well for the sailor lad,
That he sings in his boat on the bay!
And the stately ships go on
To their haven under the hill;
But O for the touch of a vanish’d hand,
And the sound of a voice that is still!
Break, break, break
At the foot of thy crags, O Sea!
But the tender grace of a day that is dead
Will never come back to me.
Overview Short Summary
The speaker watches the sea and mourns a lost presence that cannot return.
Core Ideas Main Themes
- Grief: The repeated breaking waves echo the speaker’s broken feeling.
- Memory: The poem contrasts living movement with the stillness of loss.
Literary Device How Repetition Works
The repeated opening “Break, break, break” creates rhythm and makes the sea sound like grief striking again and again.
The Charge of the Light Brigade
Half a league, half a league,
Half a league onward,
All in the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.
“Forward, the Light Brigade!
Charge for the guns!” he said:
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.
“Forward, the Light Brigade!”
Was there a man dismay’d?
Not tho’ the soldier knew
Some one had blunder’d:
Their’s not to make reply,
Their’s not to reason why,
Their’s but to do and die:
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.
Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon in front of them
Volley’d and thunder’d;
Storm’d at with shot and shell,
Boldly they rode and well,
Into the jaws of Death,
Into the mouth of Hell
Rode the six hundred.
Flash’d all their sabres bare,
Flash’d as they turn’d in air
Sabring the gunners there,
Charging an army, while
All the world wonder’d:
Plunged in the battery-smoke
Right thro’ the line they broke;
Cossack and Russian
Reel’d from the sabre stroke
Shatter’d and sunder’d.
Then they rode back, but not
Not the six hundred.
Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon behind them
Volley’d and thunder’d;
Storm’d at with shot and shell,
While horse and hero fell,
They that had fought so well
Came thro’ the jaws of Death,
Back from the mouth of Hell,
All that was left of them,
Left of six hundred.
When can their glory fade?
O the wild charge they made!
All the world wonder’d.
Honour the charge they made!
Honour the Light Brigade,
Noble six hundred!
Overview Short Summary
Tennyson honors soldiers who ride into deadly battle despite a mistaken command.
Core Ideas Main Themes
- Courage: The repeated forward motion gives the poem urgency.
- Duty: The repeated lines show obedience under impossible pressure.
Literary Device How Repetition Works
The poem uses repeated phrases such as “Rode the six hundred,” “Cannon to right of them,” and “All the world wonder’d” to imitate the rhythm of a military charge.
Continue Reading
Related Poems & Articles
More selected reading from Inspirational Poems.
