ENGL 4623/5653 Mercer

Paraphrases of Four Poems

Although these paraphrases are not double-spaced (except between paragraphs), please double-space the paraphrases you submit to me.

441, “This is my letter to World”

Writing [poetry] is my way of communicating with the people of the world, but they don’t even know I exist. I write the down-to-earth truths that Nature herself communicates so eloquently.

My success or failure in communicating Nature’s truths to the world is out of my control; it depends on other people or forces that I don’t even know. Readers, because of your love of Nature, be generous in your judgment of my writing.

1129, “Tell all the Truth but tell it slant”

Be completely honest and tell the truth, but do it indirectly. To communicate truth successfully, take the long way around rather than a straight path. The plain truth is too overpowering, too surprising for us mere mortals.

Children, for example, are less afraid of lightning if adults tell them reassuring stories about it. And we would all lose our eyesight if we looked directly at the sun. Similarly, truth must be revealed indirectly rather than directly.

1176, “We never know how high we are”

We can’t judge how much we have achieved until we are called upon to stretch ourselves even farther. Then, if we develop as we should, we grow tremendously.

We would achieve great things all the time if we didn’t stunt our growth by being afraid of greatness.

1222, “The Riddle we can guess”

We don’t value puzzles that we can figure out too easily. Nothing is as boring as what we discovered yesterday and now understand completely.