A Few Sound Devices
Poets often pay close attention to the way their words sound together, as well as what meaning they convey. Some particular devices employed include:
Alliteration: the repetition of a specific consonant sound at the beginning of several words within close proximity to one another. Tongue-twisters often employ this device ("Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers"), although poets usually avoid such overusage because it can make a poem sound too much like sing-song.
Assonance: the repetition of a vowel sound in a number of words located near one another in a poem. Do not confuse assonance with rhyme! Example: "Little kids will throw big fits." This sentence uses the short "i" sound as assonance. Assonance is more subtle and is usually harder to spot than alliteration.
Consonance: the repetition of a consonant sound located in the middle or end of a word. Example: "The dead body padded moodily along the corridor." Here, the "d" sound repeats. As with assonance, consonance is among the more subtle sound devices.
Ode On Melancholy
John Keats
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No, no, go not to Lethe, neither twist |
Alliteration: "n" |
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aWolfs-bane, tight-rooted, for its poisonous wine; |
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Nor suffer thy pale forehead to be kiss'd |
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aBy nightshade, ruby grape of Proserpine; |
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Make not your rosary of yew-berries, |
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aNor let the beetle, nor the death-moth be |
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aaYour mournful Psyche, nor the downy owl |
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A partner in your sorrow's mysteries; |
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aFor shade to shade will come too drowsily, |
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aaAnd drown the wakeful anguish of the soul. |
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But when the melancholy fit shall fall |
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aSudden from heaven like a weeping cloud, |
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That fosters the droop-headed flowers all, |
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aAnd hides the green hill in an April shroud; |
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Then glut thy sorrow on a morning rose, |
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aOr on the rainbow of the salt sand-wave, |
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aaOr on the wealth of globed peonies; |
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Or if thy mistress some rich anger shows, |
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aEmprison her soft hand, and let her rave, |
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aaAnd feed deep, deep upon her peerless eyes. |
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She dwells with Beauty--Beauty that must die; |
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aAnd Joy, whose hand is ever at his lips |
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Bidding adieu; and aching Pleasure nigh, |
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aTurning to poison while the bee-mouth sips: |
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Ay, in the very temple of Delight |
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aVeil'd Melancholy has her sovran shrine, |
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aaThough seen of none save him whose strenuous tongue |
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Can burst Joy's grape against his palate fine; |
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aHis soul shall taste the sadness of her might, |
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aaAnd be among her cloudy trophies hung. |
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More about how this poem is constructed can be found below:
Figures of speech: simile, personification
Rhyme: rhyme, slant rhyme, eye rhyme, internal rhyme, and rhyme scheme