"The Tiger" by William Blake (pg. 346) is a poem composed, for the most part, in trochaic tetrameter with a rhyme scheme of aabb. Throughout the poem a tiger is described similarly to a machine, crafted with fire and hammer and anvil, the rigid rhyme and meter contributing to its mechanical nature. The intense imagery displaying the "fire" in the beast's eyes and the sinew of its heart, and the alliteration in lines 1, 4, 5, 11, and 16 emphasize the power and primal ferocity of this creature. In addition to this, the poem repeatedly asks what being would dare to create this terrifying beast, eventually questioning whether this was the same god that could create something as gentle and harmless as a lamb, leaving the implications of that unmentioned. I found this poem to be similar in nature to "Design" by Emily Dickinson, in questioning the nature of a creator figure, though that's just the impression I received, and I'm sure there are several others.
"When I Heard the Learn'd Astronomer" by Walt Whitman (pg. 418) is a poem of a different fiber. The anaphora in the first four lines is used to intensify the speakers boredom. This, combined with the lack of varied diction, is contrasted heavily in the latter half of the poem which utilizes powerful imagery to describe the speaker wandering out of the meeting to stare in solitude at the night sky. The lack of implied explanation contributes to the beauty of a moment which cannot be explained with proofs and figures and chart and diagrams, or one that may have something removed if it were to be explained in such a manner. What I took from this, is that there is something awesome and enthralling in the unknown, and that if you seek to explain it, you may lose some degree of appreciation for it.
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