FIRST FLIGHT POETIC DEVICES

Dust of Snow
Rhyme Scheme : abab , cdcd
Alliteration : Has given my heart , And saved some part
Assonance : the prominence of a vowel sound throughout a line is called assonance.
In stanza 1, line 2, “Shook down on me”, ‘0’ sound is prominent.
Enjambment : In enjambment, the same sentence continues to the next line without the use of
any punctuation marks. It has been used throughout the poem.
Imagery : like a crow scattering snow from hemlock tree, and 'dust of snow' falling on the poet
to depict the positive effect of nature on the poet.
Symbolism : The ‘crow’ and ‘hemlock tree’. The poet has used these as a symbol to show the
emotions like dejection, gloom and depression.
Metaphor : compares the mass of snowflakes atop the hemlock tree with dust.
Synecdoche : In which a part is made to represent the whole
“Has given my heart
A change of mood”
The poet says that his “heart” as a whole has undergone a change of mood

Fire and Ice

Rhyme scheme : abaa , bcbcb
Assonance : Assonance is the repetition of same vowel sounds in the same line. The repetition is
at different places in different words. E.G., “I hold with those who favour fire.” In this line, the
long sound of ‘0’ is used.
Alliteration : The repetition of a consonant sound at the start of two or more closely placed
words is called alliteration.
For example : The sound of T in “Favour fire”, and ‘w’ in “world will”.
Imagery : Imagery is used to make readers perceive things involving their five senses.
For example : Some say the world will end in fire, “To say that for destruction ice is also great”.
Personification : It is to give human qualities to nonliving things. In this poem, ‘fire’ and ‘ice’
are capable to destroy the earth.
Enjambment : It is defined as the thought or clause that does not come to an end at a line break,
rather it moves over to the next line.
For example:
“From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favour fire”.
Anaphora : Anaphora is the repetition of a word or expression at the start of two or more
consecutive lines. For example:
“Some say” is repeated at the start of the lines 1 and 2.
Irony : use of words in which the superficial meaning is actually opposite to the real or literal
meaning.
Is also great
And would suffice.
Paradox : self -contradictory statement
But if it had to perish twice (Can the world end twice?)
Antithesis : a contrast between two things. E.g., Fire and Ice.

A Tiger in The Zoo

Rhyme scheme : abcb , abcd
Personification : The tiger is personified because the poet refers to him as ‘he’.
Metaphor : Tiger’s paws are compared with velvet (pads of velvet).
Enjambment : Sentence is continuing to next line without any punctuation mark.
Imagery : The poet tries to create an image about the tiger. (He stalks in his vivid stripes. The
few steps of his cage)
Consonance : Use of ‘s’ sound (stalks, his, stripes)
Oxymoron : Use of adjectives opposite in meaning (quiet rage)
Assonance : Use of vowel sound ‘I’ (in his vivid stripes)
Repetition : Repetition of words and phrases in the same line
Velvet quiet; quiet rage
brilliant eyes; brilliant stars
Alliteration : Repetition of initial consonant sounds in the same line
He stalks in his vivid stripes
But he’s locked in a concrete cell
Symbolism :
‘Cage’ symbolises the captivity of the tiger by humans.
‘Sky’, on the other hand, symbolises the freedom that the caged tiger longs for.
Oxymoron : The use of two consecutive words that have contradictory meanings.
The poet uses the phrase ‘quiet rage’, in which the words ‘quiet’ and ‘rage’ have contrasting
meaning making it mean ‘silent anger’ or ‘suppressed anger’.
Onomatopoeia : It describes the noises. Snarling
Synecdoche : In which a part is made to represent the whole
Vivid stripes (shows whole body of tiger)

How to Tell Wild Animals

Rhyme scheme : ababcc
Tone : The poet narrates the poem in a humorous tone.
Imagery : The use of descriptive language by a poet or an author that helps the reader to
visualise the pictures in one’s mind.
e.g., The image of the Bengal tiger is created when we read the lines ‘A noble beast greets you,
with black stripes with a yellow background.
Oxymoron : Use of adjectives opposite in meaning
The oxymoron is used in “noble wild beast”.
Metaphor : This poetic device is used when a covert comparison is made between two different
things or ideas. In the poem, the metaphors have been used in an ironical way.
roar with pain – the painful voice compared ironically with the roar of a leopard.
A noble wild beast – Ironically leopard is shown here as a noble one
the term ‘caress’ is used ironically for a bear’s claw attack.
Alliteration : It is the repetition of the same sound that is used in the beginning of the closely
placed words.
The phrases ‘lep and lep again’, ‘roaming round’, ‘very, very hard’ and ‘novice might nonplus’
are examples of alliteration in the poem.
Repetition : It is a poetic device that is used to repeat single words, phrases or even stanzas at
intervals.
He’ll only lep and lep again.
Who hugs you very, very hard
Personification : This poetic device is used to bestow human qualities on something that is not
human.
The poet refers to the tiger not as ‘it’ but as ‘he’.
In the poem, the ‘hyena’ and ‘crocodile’ have been personified.
The human qualities of ‘smiling’ and ‘weeping’ have been given to the hyena and crocodile
respectively.
Irony : Irony is a poetic device that is used by the poets to bring humour or satire on somebody
or something. It is done by giving two meanings to a word or a phrase, i.e., surface meaning and
underlying meaning.
A noble wild beast greets you.
He’ll give you just one more caress.
Poetic Licence :
With the use of poetic licence, the poet not only maintains the rhyme scheme but also creates a
humorous effect in the poem.
In some stanzas, the poet has shortened words like ‘lept’, ‘lep’, and ‘dyin’.
Also, certain sentences are framed differently in the poem like ‘novice might nonplus’ and ‘if
strolling forth, a beast you view’.
Synecdoche : In which a part is made to represent the whole
Black stripes , Hide with spots is peppered
Onomatopoeia : It describes the noises. Roars
Enjambment : Sentence is continuing to next line without any punctuation mark.
If ever you should go by chance

The Ball Poem

Rhyme scheme : No rhyme scheme is followed. So, it is a Free Verse

Anaphora : Use of two words in two or more lines (what is the boy what, what and merrily
bouncing merrily over)
Repetition : ‘What’ is repeated
Imagery : When poet says merrily bouncing down the street
Alliteration : Use of sound ‘b’ at the start of
two consecutive words (buys a ball back)
Assonance : Use of vowel sound ‘e’
Use of vowel sound ‘e’ (He is learning, well behind his desperate eyes.)
Symbolism : It is the use of symbols to signify the ideas by giving them symbolic meaning that
are different from their literal meaning.
The term ‘ball’ is used as a symbol for the boy’s past childhood days that are now gone.
The loss of the ball is symbolic of the loss of the boy’s innocence.
Metaphor : The line ‘All his young days into the harbour where His ball went’ is an example of
metaphor.
The poet uses this metaphor to draw a comparison between the lost ball and the loss of the boy’s
childhood
Enjambment :
The 2nd and the 3rd line of the first stanza
1st to 3rd line of the second stanza almost the entire third and fourth stanza
Apostrophe : This poetic device is used when the poet addresses his poem to an absent audience.
In this poem, the poet uses the device of an apostrophe in the 13th line as he directly speaks to
the little boy and tells him that balls are always liable to get lost, but we never see the boy
responding to him.
Transferred Epithet : This poetic device is used when an emotion is attributed to a non-living
thing after being displaced from a person.
The phrase ‘desperate eyes’ is an example of transferred epithet. It tells us that the boy himself is
sad, and not merely his eyes.
The poet uses this figure of speech to convey how the emotions on the little boy’s face are
reflected in his eyes.
Anaphora : Use of two words in two or more lines (what is the boy …………… what, what)
 Amanda!
Rhyme scheme : aaba , ccc
Anaphora : Repeated use of a word at the start of two or more items (don’t bite , don’t hunch),
(did you finish .... did you tidy)
Epiphora : Two consecutive lines ending with the same word. (Amanda , Amanda in the first
two lines)
Assonance : Use of vowel sound ‘o’ (don’t hunch your shoulders)
Metaphor : Use of word ‘emerald sea’ for green colour of sea being similar to the colour of
emerald
Repetition : Repeated use of word ‘Amanda’
Imagery : drifting blissfully
Alliteration : ‘Stop that slouching and sit up straight’ : ‘s’ sound is being repeated at the start of
closely placed words.
Allusion : An allusion is an indirect reference to a person, place, thing, and idea. In the poem,
Amanda briefly refers to becoming a ‘mermaid’ and ‘Rapunzel’.
A mermaid is a sea creature who is half-woman and half-fish and lives in the sea.
Rapunzel is a character from a German fairy-tale.
Transferred Epithet : The phrase ‘hushed, bared feet’ is an example of transferred epithet in the
poem.
In the phrase, Amanda’s feet aren’t ‘hushed’ or silent. Rather, the phrase describes the silent way
in which Amanda would make dust patterns with her feet as a street orphan.

The Trees
Rhyme scheme : There is no rhyme scheme in the poem. It’s written in ‘free verse’
Personification : The trees inside are moving out into the forest.
No sun bury its feet in shadow.
All night the roots work.
Winds rush to meet them.
Similes : Like newly discharged patients.
Still reaches like a voice into the rooms.
The moon is broken like a mirror.
Repetition : Where no bird / no insect / no sun.
Imagery : The trees inside are moving out into the forest.
The forest that was empty all these days
where no bird could sit …
Its pieces flash now in the crown of the tallest oak.
Alliteration: A literary device in which a series of words begin with same consonant sound.
Example: long leaves, leaves and lichen
Enjambment: Enjambment is a poetic technique in which a sentence or phrase is continued over
multiple lines of poetry, without a pause or break at the end of each line.
The poem is a good example of enjambment. Every stanza of this poem has lines continuing to
next lines without punctuation.
Fog
Rhyme scheme : There is no rhyme scheme in the poem. It’s written in ‘free verse’
Metaphor : The fog comes on little cat feet.
Imagery : Fog is treated as cat and the cat as the fog.
Personifications :The fog sits looking. Here, the fog is given human ability of sitting
and looking.
Transferred Epithet : The phrase-’silent haunches; here the haunches are not silent
but the cat is silent.
Enjambment: Enjambment refers to the continuation of a sentence or clause from one line of
poetry to the next without a pause or punctuation.
The lines from “it sits…….” to .”…move on” are examples of the use of enjambment.

The Tale of Custard the Dragon

Rhyme Scheme : The rhyme scheme of the poem is aabb. However, for stanza 13, the rhyme
scheme is aabbcc.
Repetition : Belinda tickled him, she tickled him unmerciful.
Suddenly, suddenly they heard a nasty sound.
Pistol in his left hand, pistol in his right
Anaphora : Repeated use of word at the start of two consecutive lines (and a little and a realio)
Refrain : Repetition of a sentence again and again (and a realio, trulio)
Poetic license : realio, trulio for real, true. The spellings have been changed to create a musical
effect.
Simile : ‘sharp as Mustard’, ‘mouth like a fireplace’, ‘as brave as a barrel full of bears’, ‘brave
as a tiger in a cage’, ‘snorting like an engine’, and ‘clashed his tail like iron in a dungeon’
pirate like a robin
Metaphor : It is a literary device used to represent a comparison without using the words “like”
or “as”.
chimney for a nose
And realio, trulio daggers on his toes
Onomatopoeia : It describes the sounds produced with the help of the words. The
word ‘weeck’ is an example of onomatopoeia in the poem. It mimics the sound of a rat’s
giggle. ‘Meowch’ for cat’s sound.
Similarly, the words ‘clatter’, ‘clank’ and ‘jangling’ are examples of onomatopoeia in the poem.
Allusion : An allusion is an indirect reference to a person, place, thing, and idea.
In the poem, the characters make fun of Custard by calling him ‘Percival’.
Percival was one of King Arthur’s knights who was known for running away due to lack of
courage. Thus, the characters call Custard ‘Percival’ because they consider him a coward.
Irony :
In the poem, Nash has used irony to show that while Belinda and her pets considered themselves
brave, they ultimately ran from the pirate.
Also, though Custard cried for a cage, in the end he bravely confronted the pirate.
Alliteration : It is the repetitions of the same sound used in the beginning of the closely placed
words.
Belinda lived in a little white house.
And he held in his teeth a cutlass bright.
With a clatter and a clank and a jangling squirm.
And gulped some grog from his pocket flagon.

Hyperbole : It makes something sound better or it shows exaggeration.

Belinda was as brave as a barrel full of bears
And Ink and Blink chased lions down the stairs
Mustard was as brave as a tiger in a rage
 For Anne Gregory

Rhyme Scheme : abcbdb

Metaphor : Anne’s hair is compared with the ramparts of a fort (honey-coloured ramparts at
your ear)
Anaphora : Repeated use of a word at the beginning of two lines (That he , That only God)
Alliteration : Love you for yourself alone
The phrase ‘your yellow hair’ is an example of alliteration.
Brown, or black
Apostrophe : In this poem, the poet makes use of apostrophe to address the poem to Anne, an
absent audience.
Alliteration : Love you for yourself alone
The phrase ‘your yellow hair’ is an example of alliteration.
Brown, or black
Repetition :
The phrase ‘yellow hair’ has been repeated many times. By repeating this phrase, the poet is
reinforcing the notion of external beauty.
The word ‘despair’ is also repeated in the poem. It reflects the young men’s feelings for Anne
Gregory.
Anaphora:
Definition: repeating a word or phrase at the beginning of sentences or clauses that follow each
other, done for emphasis
In the 3rd stanza – the second and third line
That he had found a text to prove
That only God, my dear,
Enjambment:
Definition: lines in a stanza ending going or continuing without any punctuation
In the 2nd Stanza: the 4th and the 5th Line
In the 3rd Stanza: 1st, 2nd and the 3rd Line