Tennyson ends “The Eagle”: “He watches from his mountain walls, / And like a thunderbolt he falls.” The closing comparison is a:

In Macbeth, “Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player / That struts and frets his hour upon the stage.” The phrase “walking shadow” works as:

Donne’s “The Flea” makes the insect’s body a “marriage bed, and marriage temple.” Which term best names this elaborate, argumentative comparison?

Dickinson opens, “‘Hope’ is the thing with feathers.” In that line, the central comparison is a:

Jaques says the world is a stage, people are players, and life has “exits,” “entrances,” and “seven ages.” The governing device is:

Burns writes, “O my Luve is like a red, red rose / That’s newly sprung in June.” The comparison is a:

Sonnet 73 says, “In me thou see’st the twilight of such day / As after sunset fadeth in the west.” What is being set beside what?

Romeo says, “It is the east, and Juliet is the sun.” What does the metaphor set beside Juliet?

Donne writes, “No man is an island, entire of itself.” What comparison does the negative metaphor depend on?

In “The Tyger,” Blake’s speaker asks about the “fire of thine eyes.” What does linking the tiger’s eyes to fire suggest about the creature?

Dickinson begins, “My Life had stood—a Loaded Gun— / In Corners.” The comparison sets the speaker’s life beside:

Keats writes of Autumn, “And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep / Steady thy laden head across a brook.” What does the simile suggest about the season?

Macbeth calls life “a walking shadow” and “a poor player” heard no more. What does that comparison assign to life?

In Sonnet 18, “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? / Thou art more lovely and more temperate.” What does the comparison attribute to the beloved?

Wordsworth writes, “I wandered lonely as a cloud / That floats on high o’er vales and hills.” What quality does the simile give the speaker?

Keats says, “My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains / My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk.” What does the simile attribute to feeling?

Marvell imagines “My vegetable love should grow / Vaster than empires, and more slow.” What does the comparison attribute to love?

Blake’s “London” hears “mind-forg’d manacles.” What does that metaphor attribute to the city’s suffering?

Donne compares lovers to “stiff twin compasses”: one “leans and hearkens” when the other roams. What does sustaining the figure let him claim?

In “All the world’s a stage,” exits, entrances, and “seven ages” extend the theater comparison. What claim does the structure support?

Spenser writes a beloved’s name on sand, but waves wash it away. How does sustaining that scene help the sonnet’s argument?

In “The Flea,” Donne says the insect “sucked me first, and now sucks thee,” so “our two bloods mingled be.” What does the conceit let him claim?

Shelley asks the West Wind to drive his “dead thoughts” over the universe “Like withered leaves to quicken a new birth.” What does the sustained comparison claim?

Herbert’s “The Pulley” imagines God withholding “rest” so weariness may draw humans back. What does the conceit let the poem claim?

Hamlet moves from “weary, stale, flat” to “an unweeded garden / That grows to seed.” What changes in the complaint?

After Duncan’s murder, Macbeth imagines Neptune’s ocean washing blood away, then his hand making “the green one red.” What changes?

Sonnet 18 begins with “a summer’s day” but later promises “thy eternal summer shall not fade.” What changes in the comparison?

Marvell begins with “world enough, and time,” then hears “Time’s winged chariot hurrying near.” What does the new comparison change?

Donne contrasts God’s current “knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend” with “break, blow, burn, and make me new.” What changes?

Romeo calls Juliet “the sun,” then urges, “Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon.” What changes as the comparison develops?