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"Song for a Dark Girl"
**By: Langston Hughes**

Way Down South in Dixie (Break the heart of me) They hung my black young lover To a cross roads tree. Way Down South in Dixie (Bruised body high in air) I asked the white Lord Jesus What was the use of prayer. Way Down South in Dixie (Break the heart of me) Love is a naked shadow On a gnarled and naked tree.  Langston Hughes was an important African-American poet in a time known as the Harlem Renaissance. His goals in his writings were to capture the traditions of the black culture in written form. He shows this in his poem “Song for a Dark Girl.” This poem is about a young African-American girl that lives in the south and loses her love because he has been hung. In this poem it shows how times were for African-Americans in the south. “Way Down South in Dixie” is being repeated in the poem because it is alluding to the last line in a popular song sung by the people of the south. Hughes repeats this line in order to emphasize the setting and the racism in the south. The girl in the story feels so helpless in the south that she does not even believe that God will help her because she sees him as a white God, and therefore thinks there is no use in her trying. She thinks of love now as a “naked shadow”, because now that her lover is gone, love to her seems dark and meaningless. The naked part was meant to symbolize the physical violation and exposure that both the man that was hung and the Dark Girl went through. Also, in this poem Hughes uses the tree as a symbol of darkness. The tree is what the lost lover was hung on and is what the dark girl looks to as being evil. The poem describe the tree as being “gnarled and naked” which can imply that the man hanging in it does not even deserve to be on a tree that is healthy. This poem helped to show how there used to be racial tensions at the time and by that it showed how badly mistreated the African-Americans were. It shows there struggles and how badly they were personally effected in this time period. 

By: Anne Bradstreet
​ All things within this fading world hath end, Adversity doth still our joys attend; No ties so strong, no friends so dear and sweet, But with death's parting blow are sure to meet. The sentence past is most irrevocable, A common thing, yet oh, inevitable. How soon, my Dear, death may my steps attend, How soon't may be thy lot to lose thy friend, We both are ignorant, yet love bids me These farewell lines to recommend to thee, That when the knot's untied that made us one, I may seem thine, who in effect am none. And if I see not half my days that's due, What nature would, God grant to yours and you; The many faults that well you know I have Let be interred in my oblivious grave; If any worth or virtue were in me, Let that live freshly in thy memory And when thou feel'st no grief, as I no harmes, Yet love thy dead, who long lay in thine arms, And when thy loss shall be repaid with gains Look to my little babes, my dear remains. And if thou love thyself, or loved'st me, These O protect from stepdame's injury. And if chance to thine eyes shall bring this verse, With some sad sighs honor my absent hearse; And kiss this paper for thy dear love's sake, Who with salt tears this last farewell did take .

Anne Bradstreet was born in Northampton, England in 1612. Her parents were Thomas Dudley and Dorothy Yorke. Her father made sure that even though Anne was a girl that she got the proper education and encouraged her to write. She was one of the few Puritan writers of her time. One of her poems that she wrote is called “Before the Birth of One of Her Children.” In this poem Bradstreet is talking to her soon to be child and talking to it about death and all of its possibilities. In her poem she writes about death as it being “inevitable” and how “it is sure to meet.” By saying this she means that it happens to everyone whether we like it or not, and that there is no avoiding it. In this poem she also talks about her own death whether it be soon or not. It shows how things were during the time, because it was dangerous during that time period to have children considering the lack of medical intelligence. She also writes “Look to my little babes, my dear remains./ And if thou love thyself, or loved’st me,/ These O protect from stepdame’s injury.” What Bradford is telling her future child here is that when she is dead and gone, to take care of her other children and watch over them even when they have a new stepmother. In the end of her poem Bradstreet shows her emotions when she wrote, “And kiss this paper for thy love’s dear sake,/ Who with salt tears this farewell did take.” These lines make it sound like Bradstreet did not ever expect to get to talk to her child by all the emotion she expressed. This poem showed the mystery of maternal love and the connection shared by the mother and unborn child.

**"359" By: Emily Dickinson**  A Bird came down the Walk -- He did not know I saw -- He bit an Angleworm in halves And ate the fellow, raw,

And then he drank a Dew From a convenient Grass -- And then hopped sidewise to the Wall To let a Beetle pass --

He glanced with rapid eyes That hurried all around -- They looked like frightened Beads, I thought -- He stirred his Velvet Head

Like one in danger, Cautious, I offered him a Crumb And he unrolled his feathers And rowed him softer home --

Than Oars divide the Ocean, Too silver for a seam -- Or Butterflies, off Banks of Noon Leap, plashless as they swim.  Emily Dickinson was born on December 10, 1830 among one of the most prominent families in Amherst, Massachusetts. She is considered one of the most mysterious writers in American history, and spent a majority of her life confined in her room where she wrote many poems in her journal. In this journal was a poem numbered 359. This is about someone who is observing a bird, and while observing the bird eats a worm and then passes straight by a beetle. When the person tries to feed the bird it flies away. Religion is shown in this poem by Dickinson. She has the bird as a representation of God. I say this because the bird came and took up the Angle worm like God takes the non-sinners to heaven, while the bird passes up the beetle. It is clear that Dickinson used the worms to represent non-sinners because she said it was an “Angle Worm.” It is also clear that the sinners were symbolized by the beetle, because beetles are black and throughout literature black is a symbol for evil. When the man tried to feed the bird it flew away, which was because it was not the man’s turn to go and he still had time to be either the worm or the beetle. Dickinson also writes “And he unrolled his feathers,/ And rowed him softer Home-.“ That shows that the bird represents God because it is flying into the sky towards heaven, which she wrote was home. She also wrote “Than Oars divide the Ocean,” as imagery when the bird is flying off. This can be considered as a biblical allusion to when Moses parted the sea. It seems very clear that this poem talks about the differences between good and evil, and how the good will be taken to heaven while those who are evil are left behind.

**"The Young Housewife" By: William Carlos Williams**  At ten AM the young housewife moves about in negligee behind the wooden walls of her husband's house. I pass solitary in my car.

Then again she comes to the curb to call the ice-man, fish-man, and stands shy, uncorseted, tucking in stray ends of hair, and I compare her to a fallen leaf.

The noiseless wheels of my car rush with a crackling sound over dried leaves as I bow and pass smiling.  William Carlos Williams was born in Rutherford, New Jersey in 1883. He is most known for the simplicity in his poems helped to bring his poetry into a natural relation with everyday life. Williams’ poetry became more popular after World War II and the type of poetry he wrote is considered by many to be modernistic. One of the poems that he wrote is called “The Young Housewife.” This poem is written in the first person point of view, and is talking about the man driving by a house that has a young housewife in it. The view the man has on the woman throughout the poems changes from desire to pity. The housewife in the story is described as if she has no rights to do anything for herself. It comes across as if she is trapped in her husband’s house when it says, “moves about in her negligee behind/ the wooden walls of her husband’s house.” It seems she is trapped because it does not even say that the house is hers also and that she is stuck behind the walls. Also, in the poem, it says, “Then again she comes to the curb/ to call the ice-man, fish-man, and stands.” It seems like she is a prisoner and the only time she can leave the house is when she is running errands. She is then described as being shy, which is probably because she feels out of place from being enclosed in the house and being limited in her actions. Because of these actions of the housewife the man is able to compare this woman to a falling leaf. He sees that the housewife’s soul has become crippled like the fallen leaf which he compares her to. The man sees that in her shyness and the way she composes herself that she is worn out which is another way he can compare her to a fallen leaf that has dried up.

 "Design" By: Robert Frost <span style="display: block; font-family: Impact,Charcoal,sans-serif; text-align: center;"> I found a dimpled spider, fat and white, On a white heal-all, holding up a moth Like a white piece of rigid satin cloth -- Assorted characters of death and blight Mixed ready to begin the morning right, Like the ingredients of a witches' broth -- A snow-drop spider, a flower like a froth, And dead wings carried like a paper kite.

What had that flower to do with being white, The wayside blue and innocent heal-all? What brought the kindred spider to that height, Then steered the white moth thither in the night? What but design of darkness to appall?-- If design govern in a thing so small.

<span style="font-family: Impact,Charcoal,sans-serif;">Robert Frost was born in San Francisco, California in 1874. Many of his works are known to be about the outdoor scenery and nature. He has in the past been interpreted as an ideological descendant of the nineteenth-century transcendentalists. The thing that sets him apart from those writers that he is less affirmative about the universe. One of the poems that was written by Frost was “Design.” The poem is about a man observing I white spider on a white flower eating a white moth. In this poem all of the white stands for purity and good. The spider is white to represent evil and how it can deceive the good in the world by manipulating itself. This is shown by Frost saying that the spider was white and also the flower was white, when neither of them can be found in nature as white. In the last stanza Frost is questioning why it is that everything that looks so good and right with nature can turn into the spider killing the moth. He is questioning why God, if there is one is killing the moth. In the last line he writes, “What but design of darkness to appall?-/ If design govern in a thing so small.” Seeing the spider tricking the moth made the man question whether it happened by chance or just happened because that is the way that it was intended by God. He questions whether God intended it to happen because the moth was white, representing purity, and its life was taken because he was tricked by the white flower and spider. I think that the poem shows that we need to be more cautious and aware of our surroundings, and that evil can be found everywhere you look, if you look hard enough. <span style="display: block; font-family: Impact,Charcoal,sans-serif; text-align: center;">