Interactive Guide Grade 8

The Secret Code of Poetry and the Art of Understanding It (Excerpt from Student Workbook)

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Analyze This!

Read “To a Snowflake” aloud slowly, then answer the following questions.

To a Snowflake Francis Thompson What heart could have thought you?

Past our devisal (O filigree petal!) Fashioned so purely,

devisal: the ability to imagine an filigree: a delicate ornament of in Literal meaning: 1. The poet asks two main questions in this poem, and the snowflake responds directly to each one. What are the two questions, and what are the two answers?

5 Fragilely, surely,

From what Paradisal Imagineless metal, Too costly for cost? Who hammered you, wrought you,

Paradisal: belonging to Paradise imagineless: unimaginable

10 From argentine vapor? — “God was my shaper. Passing surmisal,

argentine: silver

Imagery: 2. In line 19, the snowflake declares it was made “Mightily, frailly.” This sounds like a contradiction. How does the creation of the snowflake combine might and frailty?

surmisal: guess, thought

He hammered, He wrought me, From curled silver vapor, Thou couldst not have thought me! So purely, so palely, Tinily, surely, Mightily, frailly,

lust: desire

15 To lust of His mind: —

3. What type of craftsman is God portrayed as? Pay attention to words like “metal,” “hammered,” “wrought,” “insculped,” “embossed,” “hammer,” and “graver.” Could a human craftsman make a snowflake? Why do you think Thompson compares God to a human craftsman?

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insculped: carved embossed: decorated with a raise graver: one who engraves

20 Insculped and embossed, With His hammer of wind, And His graver of frost.”

Sound: 4. “To a Snowflake” does not have a regular rhyme scheme, but its rhymes are still significant. For instance, by rhyming “petal” with “metal,” Thompson connects the words in our minds. How can he use both of these words to describe the snowflake?

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