Paraphrase any one of the following poems:
1. Annabel Lee, by Edgar Allan Poe
2. A Red, Red Rose, by Robert Burns
3. Gitanjali 35 'Where the mind is without fear', by Rabindranath Tagore
Answers
“Annabel Lee” Summary
Many years ago, there was a kingdom by the sea. In this kingdom lived a young woman called Annabel Lee, whom the speaker suggests the reader might know. According to the narrator, Annabel Lee's only ever thought about the love between them.
They were both children, but their love went well beyond what love can normally be. In fact, this love was so special that the angels of heaven were jealous and desirous of it.
For that reason, back then, Annabel Lee was killed by wind from a cloud. She was then taken away by people the narrator calls "highborn kinsmen," who could be the angels or Annabel Lee's own family members. They enclosed her in a tomb, still within the same kingdom.
Retrospectively, the speaker believes that the angels, unhappy in heaven and envious of the love between him and Annabel Lee, caused the wind that killed her.
Their love, says the speaker, was more powerful than the love between people older and wiser than them. Furthermore, no angel from heaven or demon under the sea could ever separate his soul from Annabel Lee's.
Every time the moon shines, it brings the speaker dreams of his beloved. When the stars rise, he can sense her sparkling eyes. Every night the speaker lies down alongside Annabel Lee—whom he calls his "life" and "bride"—in her tomb, with the sound of the sea coming from nearby.
2.A Red, Red Rose Summary & Analysis
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“A Red, Red Rose” is a poem composed by Scotland's national poet, Robert Burns. It was first published in 1794 in a collection of traditional Scottish songs set to music. Burns’s poem was inspired both by a simple Scots song he had heard in the country and by published ballads from the period. The poem has the form of a ballad and is meant to be sung aloud. It describes the speaker’s deep love for his or her beloved and promises that this love will last longer than human life and even the planet itself, remaining fresh and constant forever.
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“A Red, Red Rose” Summary
The speaker describes his or her love—meaning either the person the speaker loves or the speaker's feelings of love for that person—as being as beautiful, vivid, and fresh as a flower that has just recently bloomed. This love is as sweet as a beautiful song played by a skilled musician.
The beloved is so beautiful that the speaker loves her with a deep and strong passion—so strong, in fact, that the speaker's love will last until the oceans have become dry.
Even after the seas have evaporated and the earth has decayed, the speaker will still love the beloved. This love will endure until their own lives have ended and even until all human life has ended.
The speaker concludes by saying goodbye to the beloved—who is, the speaker reminds her, the only person the speaker loves. The speaker wishes her well during their temporary separation. The speaker reaffirms his or her faithful love by promising to return even if the journey covers a very long distance and takes a very long time.
3.Summary
This poem is a contemplation of a state of being, a place in time, and a way of living into which the author, Tagore, wishes his country, India, would awaken. The first nine lines of the poem present a number of statements in which begin with the word, “Where…” These statements are each positive attributes that Tagore is hoping India will achieve. The poem resolves by finishing all of these sentences, and Tagore making a plea to his Father, for his country to wake up into “that heaven of freedom.”
In this poem, Tagore lays out the tenants of what could be called a utopian society.