#3 Praise for Faith

Praise for Faith

by William Cowper

Of all the gifts Thine hand bestows,

Thou Giver of all good!

Not heaven itself a richer knows

Than my Redeemer's blood.

Faith too, the blood-receiving grace,

From the same hand we gain;

Else, sweetly as it suits our case,

That gift had been in vain.

Till Thou Thy teaching power apply,

Our hearts refuse to see,

And weak, as a distemper'd eye,

Shut out the view of Thee.

Blind to the merits of Thy Son,

What misery we endure!

Yet fly that Hand from which alone

We could expect a cure.

We praise Thee, and would praise

Thee more,To Thee our all we owe:

The precious Saviour, and the power

That makes Him precious too.

TITLE: When I was going over some poems about the theme “faith” this title just caught my mind. I guessed that the word ‘praise’ would mean praising to God and having faith in Him.

PARAPHRASE: God is so wonderful. He supports us everything we need and is so good to us. By His never failing grace, mercy and love, we are so gifted and “lucky” to feel His presence. Sometimes when He tries to lead us to a better way, we try to avoid that and turn away from Him. How foolish we are, we even step ourselves up to the way of destruction. However, God never gives up on us. He encourages us and tries His best to make us return to Him. We should praise God even more for who He is, and know the value of God our Saviour.

CONNOTATION:
Alliteration- “Till Thou Thy teaching”
Allusion- Related to one of the Psalms in the Bible
Metaphor- “Thou Giver of all good!”
Characterization- (I’m not sure if God can be a character) God gives us so many things, cures us, encourages us, saved us, forgives us, is merciful to us, and provides us with our needs.
Rhyme Scheme- abab (ex. Bestows good knows blood)
Rhythm- 1st and 3rd lines have 8 syllabus, 2nd and 4th lines have 6 syllabus
Symbol- blood symbolizes His sacrifice to us, hand symbolizes His power and how great He is, weak symbolizes the evilness of our soul and destruction

ATTITUDE: happy, joyful, grateful, lovely, regrettable

SHIFTS: Until the 2nd stanza, it talks about how grateful we should be and how much God has given us and provided us with everything. He saved us and generally talks about how great He is. However, from the 3rd stanza, the topic shifts to how evil and disrespectful we were to God. How we turned away when He was right in front of us. We are to be blamed, which continues until the 4th stanza. The 5th stanza again changes that we should praise the Lord for His goodness and how great He has been to us. The shifts are similar to our life. We are grateful at times, but can turn away when we have decided a day ago, then we realize and praise the Lord again.

TITLE: We have to praise the Lord to have faith in God. Praising God is one of the most important things we need to do if we are Christian. For the things He have done to us and His love poured to us, we are to praise God and gradually gain more faith in Him.

THEME: Faith is the only word to describe this poem. It’s very simple how things work, even though it seems very complicated. The relationship between God and us can be better only when we praise Him and earn more faith in God.

#2 Petals

Petals

by Amy Lowell

Life is a stream

On which we strew

Petal by petal the flower of our heart;

The end lost in dream,

They float past our view,

We only watch their glad, early start.

Freighted with hope,

Crimsoned with joy,

We scatter the leaves of our opening rose;

Their widening scope,

Their distant employ,

We never shall know. And the stream as it flows

Sweeps them away,

Each one is gone

Ever beyond into infinite ways.

We alone stay

While years hurry on,

The flower fared forth, though its fragrance still stays.

(I put a picture of pink heart candle,

since candles eventually burn out and will disappear,

but the beauty and fragrance is still left)

TITLE: I was very appealed to this poem by the title. I knew that it related to flowers, and guessed that it’s a beautiful poem about life and nature. However, I also thought about the petals of the flowers falling down gradually because of death.

PARAPHRASE: Life doesn’t just stay where we always want to stop and when we are ultimately happy. Like petals falling down from the flowers after some period of time, or waters dropping from the petals, it explains how life travels down the stream. We never know how our life is going to end up; our past, memories, and life will eventually end up, but our life will be remembered as “beautiful.”

CONNOTATION:

• Imagery- “Petal by petal the flower of our heart”


• Hyperbole- “Freighted with hope, Crimsoned with joy”


• Rhyme Scheme- abcabc (ex. Stream strew heart, dream view start)


• Metaphor- “Life is a steam”


• Personification- “on which we strew”, “While years hurry on”

ATTITUDE: lovely, beautiful, soft, peaceful, mysterious, joyful, thoughtful, hopeful

SHIFTS: Even though I don’t really think that there are ‘shifts’ in this poem, the middle part where it starts with another paragraph slightly shows a shift. The first paragraph was telling how life has to go on, and how it travels so fast like a petal. However, on the second paragraph, it’s “kind of” indicating that life is beautiful, and our fragrance is left in this world. It’s hopeful and encouraging, which I like, because I think the endings are very important when it comes to poems.

TITLE: The petals are connected to our life and relationships. It shows how our life is so simple and based on just one flower, however, our beauty is left in this world. Petal is the metaphor of how our life is being traveled and moves on.

THEME: The poem is somehow saying not to give up and not to be depressed about how time flies and our best moments goes away. That is life. It never seems to end, but we can never also keep only our best moments.

February 14,08

Grace Lee