The kind of metaphor in which lower animals or inanimate things are spoken of as if they were persons is called personification.

Longfellow's poem, To the River Charles, The Voice of Spring by Mrs. Hemans, and Van Dyke's The Ruby Crowned Kinglet, are examples of continued personification.

Exercise 228

Explain the figurative language found in these sentences.

1. The little bird sits at his door in the sun Atilt like a blossom among the leaves.

2. I watched the engineer oil and stroke the sinews of his monster.

3. Well knows the fair and friendly moon The band that Marion leads.

4. He is surely a live wire.

5. Thy waves of blue.

From celestial seas above thee Take their own celestial blue.

6. The clouds are at play in the azure space,

And their shadows at play on the bright green vale.

7. The station shook with the iron coughing of engines.

8. Winter giveth the fields and the trees, so old, Their beards of icicles and snow.

9. The breaking waves dashed high On a stern and rock-bound coast.

10. With sharp blue eyes, each like a pin.

11. But Robin's here, in coat of brown.

12. Like an army defeated The snow has retreated.

13. The robin is plastering his house hard by.

14. As one lamp lighteth another nor grows less, So nobleness enkindleth nobleness.

Exercise 229

Bead the following lines from the prelude to Longfellow's Evangeline. Learn what you can about Druids and harpers. Look up any words that you do not know the meaning of. Then study the lines again part by part, and find in them these examples of figures of speech: (1) five similes, (2) two personifications, (3) several nouns and adjectives that are used figuratively. Find also several adjectives that are used literally.

This is the forest primeval. The murmuring pines and the hemlocks,

Bearded with moss, and in garments green, indistinct in the twilight,

Stand like Druids of eld, with voices sad and prophetic,

Stand like harpers hoar, with beards that rest on their bosoms.

Loud from its rocky caverns, the deep-voiced neighboring ocean

Speaks, and in accents disconsolate answers the wail of the forest.

This is the forest primeval; but where are the hearts that beneath it

Leaped like the roe, when he hears in the woodland the voice of the huntsman?

Where is the thatch-roofed village, the home of Acadian farmers, - Men whose lives glided on like rivers that water the woodlands, Darkened by shadows of earth, but reflecting an image of heaven? Waste are those pleasant farms, and the farmers forever departed I Scattered like dust and leaves, when the mighty blasts of October Seize them, and whirl them aloft, and sprinkle them far o'er the ocean. Naught but tradition remains of the beautiful village of Grand-Pre".