Weather and Our Daily Life
Senior 6 · English (Languages)
Weather and Our Daily Life
Lesson 4 of 4
35 min
Let's begin
A poem is made to be heard. Long before you understand a line, you hear its rhymes, its rhythm and the texture of its sounds, and those sounds shape what you feel. In this lesson you will learn the main devices of sound and structure in poetry, and see them working together in a famous poem in which a cloud describes itself: the rain it brings, the hail it throws and the thunder it laughs in.
Shelley (1792–1822) published "The Cloud" in 1820. The whole poem is spoken by the cloud itself. Here is the first stanza; read it aloud before you read about it.
I bring fresh showers for the thirsting flowers,
From the seas and the streams;
I bear light shade for the leaves when laid
In their noonday dreams.
From my wings are shaken the dews that waken
The sweet buds every one,
When rocked to rest on their mother's breast,
As she dances about the sun.
I wield the flail of the lashing hail,
And whiten the green plains under,
And then again I dissolve it in rain,
And laugh as I pass in thunder.
Glosses: flail = a tool for beating grain; wield = hold and use (a weapon or tool); their mother = the Earth, which "dances about the sun".
Definition
Key terms
Every long line contains its own rhyme; every short line rhymes with the next short line. The diagram marks the pattern in the first four lines.
| Device | Example | Effect |
|---|---|---|
| Internal rhyme in every long line | showers / flowers; shade / laid; shaken / waken; rest / breast; flail / hail; again / rain | A chiming, playful music, like drops falling in pairs |
| End rhyme in the short lines | streams / dreams; one / sun; under / thunder | Binds each pair of lines together; the stanza ends on its loudest word, thunder |
| Anapaestic rhythm | "From the SEAS and the STREAMS" | A light, rolling, galloping movement, like a cloud blown across the sky |
| Alliteration and sibilance | "seas and the streams"; "sweet … every one" | Soft s sounds suggest gentle rain and mist |
| Contrast of sound | "the flail of the lashing hail" | Harder, heavier words and a beating rhythm as the cloud turns violent |
| Persona | "I bring …", "I bear …", "I wield …" | The cloud speaks for itself, generous and then dangerous, and finally laughing |
| Personification | buds "rocked to rest on their mother's breast", the Earth "dances" | Nature becomes a family, the cloud its caring and powerful visitor |
| Enjambment | "when laid / In their noonday dreams" | The line runs on, as the shade drifts on, before the short line settles it |
Worked example
Writing about sound: a model paragraph
"Shelley makes the cloud's power audible. In the first lines the internal rhymes are soft and close together, 'showers' and 'flowers', 'shade' and 'laid', and the sibilance of 'seas and the streams' sounds like a gentle rain. In the last four lines the sounds harden: the cloud 'wield[s] the flail of the lashing hail', where the repeated l sounds and the stressed, heavy verbs imitate the beating of hailstones. The stanza ends on 'thunder', the loudest word in it, placed as the final rhyme, so that the cloud's laugh is the last thing we hear. Sound here is not decoration; it traces the cloud's change from giver to destroyer and back."
Tip
How to find the stresses in a line. Read it aloud naturally, as if speaking it, and tap the table on the beats. Mark stressed syllables with / and unstressed ones with u. Do not force a pattern: real poems vary their metre, and the variations are often where the meaning is.
Warning
Practice
Further reading
Sources and credits
