Poetry Comparison

Today I will compare two poems, Fireflies in the Garden by Robert Frost, and The Hummingbird by Emily Dickinson. These two poems are similar in that they are both about nature, but about different things, one is about insects and the other is about a hummingbird. Here are the links to the poems: The Hummingbird, Fireflies in the Garden.

Both of these poems rhyme. A good example from Fireflies in the Garden is at the end of the first and second lines, the words “skies” and “flies” rhyme. This rhyme continues through the entire poem, except in line three, where “size” doesn't rhyme with anything. In “The Hummingbird”, the only lines that rhyme are 2 and 4, the words “Wheel” and “Cochineal”.

Both of these poems have metaphors hidden inside. A very obvious metaphor is in “Fireflies in the Garden”, where the author compares fireflies to small stars. A metaphor in “The Hummingbird” is in lines 5 and 6, where the flowers are described as adjusting their heads. This is a personification, which is a type of metaphor. The whole poem is a series of metaphors for a hummingbird.

Only one of these poems has alliteration. At the beginning of the first to fourth lines of “The Hummingbird”, Emily Dickinson uses alliteration with the words Route, Resonance, and Rush. There is no alliteration in “Fireflies in the Garden”.

Both of these poems have imagery. In “The Hummingbird”, we don't hear the word “hummingbird” in the entire poem, but we use the contents of the poem to piece together a description of a hummingbird. In “Fireflies in the Garden”, the fireflies are not mentioned either, but we can tell from the description of stars emulating flies that these are fireflies that we're talking about.

There are many literary devices in these poems, but these are some of the most obvious.