Here is my final Poetry assignment for English 9 along with  my analysis! There was sound, but for some reason it does not want to play now. Sorry about that. 🙁

Poem

Gather ye rose-buds while ye may,

Old Time is still a-flying;

And this same flower that smiles today

Tomorrow will be dying.

The glorious lamp of heaven, the sun,

The higher he’s a-getting,

The sooner will his race be run,

And nearer he’s to setting.

That age is best which is the first,

When youth and blood are warmer;

But being spent, the worse, and worst

Times still succeed the former.

Then be not coy, but use your time,

And while ye may, go marry;

For having lost but once your prime,

You may forever tarry.

4-square

Reflection

I love the poem ‘To the Virgins, To Make Much of Time’ because of the meaning of life that it has in it. This poem has some old words, but at the same time is pretty straightforward. The word choice is very interesting, but supports the main idea of the poem and gives the reader a lot to think about.

The music that I chose to represent the poem is played on the fretted dulcimer, and its name is actually the same as that of the poem. I thought that this melody really helped carry through the main message of the poem and set the mood very nicely.

To me, the message of the poem is that you should enjoy the time that you have in life because you will not live forever. Time is limited, and if everyone did not think about that, no one would do any great things and die unhappy. The first two lines give the reader an idea of what the poem is going to be about straight away: “Gather ye rosebuds while ye may, Old time is still a-flying”. Grab the time before it slips away, and spend it wisely. Then, throughout the whole entire poem, this message is repeated again and again to make the reader really think about it. Some other famous quotes that are very similar to the message of this poem are “Carpe diem” (translated from Latin as “Seize the day!”) and “Time is of the essence”.

This poem looks like it was written a long time ago. There are words like “ye”, “a-flying”, “a-getting” and “tarry” that are not used nearly as often in the modern world. The author chose to have some lines in the poem to be very straightforward and easy to understand, but some lines to be ones that you have to really think about and read between the lines to understand them. The stanza I had to think about the most to understand it was the 3^rd one. But after reading through it a few times, I finally understood what the author meant. “That age is best which is the first, When youth and blood are warmer” means that the best age to enjoy life is an early age, when you are still a child, and “But being spent, the worse, and worst Times still succeed the former” means that time is being spent worse and worse by children, but still, some people succeed in life and do great things, even if in their childhood they did not spend their life wisely.

My favourite line in the poem is “Then be not coy, but use your time” because that line pretty much sums up the whole message of the poem and it is a very strong message. What the line is saying is that you should not be shy and timid, because then your whole life will pass quickly and you will not have used your time very wisely. Another line I really like is “Gather ye rosebuds while ye may”- the first line. Of course, it doesn’t actually mean to pick roses, but to live your life while you can, to gather the joys of life while you can.

The tone of this poem is calm, but at the same time serious. I think that this type of tone is perfect for the content of the poem. If the tone was happier, then the reader would not take the message seriously. If the tone was sadder, no one would want to read the poem because it would be too depressing.

I really like this poem because it has a lot of meaning in it and has a very interesting word choice. It gives the reader, whatever age the reader is, something to think about.

Here is my Poetic Devices Project that I did for my English 9 class.