Question

Theme and form in early american poetry Mastery test:

Answer 1

I said unto myself, if I were dead,

What would befall these children? What would be

Their fate, who now are looking up to me

For help and furtherance? Their lives, I said,

Would be a volume wherein I have read

But the first chapters, and no longer see

To read the rest of their dear history,

So full of beauty and so full of dread.

Be comforted; the world is very old,

And generations pass, as they have passed,

A troop of shadows moving with the sun;

Thousands of times has the old tale been told;

The world belongs to those who come the last,

They will find hope and strength as we have done.

"Be comforted; the world is very old,

And generations pass, as they have passed."

Explanation:

"A Shadow" is a poem written by an American poet. The name of the poet is Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882). This American poet is whose verses are still being recovered by young generations.

The theme of the poem is about the separation of the life of the human being from death. It also talks about the factors which lead to the separation of the life from death.