Great Regulars: [Al] Gore begins his piece,

"One thin September soon/A floating continent disappears/In midnight sun." This first assertion presents several problems: 1)he could be referring only to the "continents" at the Earth's extreme north and south; 2) there are no "floating continents," so he has to be referring to Antarctica, because the Arctic is not a continent at all; 3) the "midnight sun" refers to a phenomenon that occurs in summer at each pole when the sun does not set.

from Linda Sue Grimes: Suite101.com: Al Gore's Untitled Poem

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Badger Clark's "A Cowboy's Prayer" offers a prayer that would make any mother proud, as he celebrates his free lifestyle of living on the open range. Each octet stanza features the rime scheme ABABCDCD. This Badger classic was first published in The Pacific Monthly, December 1906.

About this poem/prayer, Katie Lee writes in her classic history of cowboy songs and poems starkly titled Ten Thousand Goddam Cattle, A History of the American Cowboy in Song, Story, and Verse, "The language is true to his free-roving spirit and gives insight to the code he lived by--the things he expected of himself."

from Linda Sue Grimes: Suite101.com: Badger Clark's A Cowboy's Prayer

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She suffered a long line sorrows instead of "all those natural joys" that young woman usually experience so easily.

This speaker has so often alluded to her sorrow that the reader is not surprised that it appears again for dramatization. Her storehouse of metaphors that elucidate her misery is large and varied.

from Linda Sue Grimes: Suite101.com: Barrett Browning's Sonnet 25

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But Henry impregnated Amanda despite that deadly knowledge, and sure enough, Amanda died young: "In my youth therefore I entered the portals of dust."

Amanda then speaks directly to the person who might be viewing her tombstone, calling that person "Traveler." She reports that people in her town thought her husband loved her as a husband should love a wife. But she unequivocally announces that he hated her and deliberately killed her out of that hatred.

from Linda Sue Grimes: Suite101.com: Serepta and Amanda

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