It's a warm, sunny day and you've been running around the park all morning. You've just finished a picnic lunch and you're lying on your back in the green grass with all your friends, taking a break. You look up into the bright blue sky and see a lot of white, fluffy clouds. Your friend sees one that looks like an ice cream cone, you see an elephant shape, and someone else sees a race car. As they float by, the clouds change shape, creating new pictures in the sky like a moving piece of art.
Christina Rossetti was an English woman who wrote many important poems in the 1800s. Although that seems like a long time ago, she looked up into the sky and saw shapes floating by in the clouds just like you do today. She even wrote a poem called ''Clouds'' that describes what you see when you look up at the sky and how the clouds float slowly by and disappear. Let's take a look at her poem:
White sheep, white sheep,
On a blue hill,
When the wind stops,
You all stand still.
When the wind blows,
You walk away slow.
White sheep, white sheep,
Where do you go?
You may have noticed that the word 'clouds' is only used in the title but not in the actual poem. Metaphors are words or expressions that use one thing to represent something else that's similar. If you picture fluffy white clouds and fluffy white sheep in your mind, you see that they have a lot in common. Rossetti used sheep as a metaphor to creatively describe clouds and paint a clear image in your mind as you read, like an artist paints a picture on canvas.
She did the same thing when she described the sky as a blue hill where the sheep are standing. When the wind is calm, the clouds seem to stand still, but if there's a breeze, they blow slowly by until they are out of sight, like sheep walking away.
Creative language isn't the only way Rossetti paints a picture of clouds in your mind. She uses words at the end of some lines that create a rhyming pattern, or certain order that repeats, like the black and white stripe pattern on a referee's shirt. The pattern she uses helps to give the poem a beat, kind of like music without the tune. Let's look at the poem again so we can see the pattern:
White sheep, white sheep, (A)
On a blue hill, (B)
When the wind stops, (C)
You all stand still. (B)
When the wind blows, (A)
You walk away slow. (B)
White sheep, white sheep, (C)
Where do you go? (B)
The rhyming pattern is A, B, C, B. Only the B lines have words at the end that rhyme. This creates a rhythm as you read the poem. Christina Rossetti used that rhythm along with the creative language to help you look at clouds and feel the way she did when she watched them in the sky.
Christina Rossetti was an English poet in the 1800s who wrote many poems, including ''Clouds.'' Metaphors are words or expressions that use one thing to represent something else that's similar. Rosetti used sheep as a metaphor to describe the clouds floating across the sky, which she called a blue hill. Besides using creative language, she used the A, B, C, B rhyming pattern, or certain order that repeats, to create a rhythm as you read the poem, helping you to experience clouds the way she did.
This activity will help you assess your skill in conveying metaphorical meaning.
For this activity, carefully read and select the best answer closest in meaning to a line from a song. To do this, print or copy this page on a blank paper and circle the letter of your answer.
1) I got that sunshine in my pocket
I got that good soul in my feet
-Can't Stop the Feeling by Justin Timberlake
sunshine means__________
A. bright light
B. the sun
C. happiness
D. flashlight
2) I got the eye of the tiger, a fighter, dancing through the fire
Cause I am a champion and you're gonna hear me roar
-Roar by Katy Perry
roar means __________
A. show courage
B. ready to fight
C. make noise
D. be fearful
3) My heart's a stereo, it beats for you so listen close
Hear my thoughts in every note
Make me your radio
-Stereo Hearts by Gym Class Heroes
The speaker means__________
A. he should be used as a music player
B. he can play many songs
C. he is in love
D. he can sing well
4) You shoot me down, but I won't fall
I am titanium
-Titanium by David Guetta
titanium means__________
A. an element
B. strong-willed
C. successful
D. dreamy
5) New York, concrete jungle where dreams are made of
There's nothing you can't do
-Empire State of Mind by Jay-Z
concrete jungle means__________
A. a dangerous place
B. place made of concrete
C. the suburbs
D.big modern city
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