Poem+Comparison

Where the Sidewalk Ends
 There is a place where the sidewalk ends  And before the street begins,  And there the grass grows soft and white,  And there the sun burns crimson bright,  And there the moon-bird rests from his flight  To cool in the peppermint wind. Let us leave this place where the smoke blows black  And the dark street winds and bends.  Past the pits where the asphalt flowers grow We shall walk with a walk that is measured and slow,  And watch where the chalk-white arrows go  To the place where the sidewalk ends. Yes we'll walk with a walk that is measured and slow,  And we'll go where the chalk-white arrows go, For the children, they mark, and the children, they know <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> The place where the sidewalk ends.

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Captivity
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">How falling snow takes a town at night

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">in its muffle, takes you, too,

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">standing there under the street light

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">alone watching giant shadows silently

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">crash down. And you stay there so long

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">your ears pick up the tiny tinkle-tink-tink

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">above you of snowflakes breaking

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">on the metal lamp-shade. Squeak-slap

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">squeak-slap squeak-slap someone

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">in galoshes walks by then fades utterly

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">into the thickness of whiteness

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">of darkness. Snowflakes falling

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">on your face, melting in your eyes,

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">filling your footprints with stillness.

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Two streets away a truck with loose chains

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">clanks rhythmically into soft oblivion.

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">//Where the Sidewalk Ends// is not litterally about where the sidewalk ends as much as where it changes. It changes, for children, from being just the sidewalk, to a safe place as they draw. They disapear from the real world, completely engrossed in their art. They forget the dangers of the world around them and they feel secure. This is quite a contrast from //Captivity//. //Captivity// is more about being alone. Captivated by beauty. The sadness and the oblivion of being surrounded by your own thoughts. In both poems it's sort of about being "somewhere else". Not litterally but mentally somewhere else. Almost in another world; your own little half imaginary world.

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The stuctures of the poems are quite similar. Although //Where the Sidewalk Ends// rhymes. The rhythms of the lines are pretty much the same the whole way through. They are both pretty deep poems in different ways. One seems quite happy and the other sad.

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">As I said before //Where the Sidewalk Ends// has a lot of rhyming. They both have plenty of imagery and they both symbolize kind of being somewhere "out of this world". //Captivity//uses loads of onomatopoeia yet Where the sidewalk ends uses none They both use metaphors as well to aid in describing the surroundings and settings. Captivity also uses an oxymoron in the line "alone watching giant shadows silently crash down. And you stay there so long". Silenty crashing is a contradiction.