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Test: Common Core: 12th Grade English Language Arts
Passage adapted from Edna St. Vincent Millay's "Spring" (1921).
To what purpose, April, do you return again?
Beauty is not enough.
You can no longer quiet me with the redness
Of leaves opening stickily.
I know what I know. 5
The sun is hot on my neck as I observe
The spikes of the crocus.
The smell of the earth is good.
It is apparent that there is no death.
But what does that signify? 10
Not only under the ground are the brains of men
Eaten by maggots.
Life in itself
Is nothing,
An empty cup, a flight of uncarpeted stairs. 15
It is not enough that yearly, down this hill,
April
Comes like an idiot, babbling and strewing flowers.
| 1. | Which of the given lines from a seminal American poem most directly contrasts the message of the passage? |
"The spring decoys./ And as the summer nears—/ And as the Rose appears,/ Robin is gone./ Yet do I not repine"
"As the uncertain harvest; keep us here/ All simply in the springing of the year."
"Now the sun walks in the forest,/ He touches the bows and stems with his golden fingers;/ They shiver, and wake from slumber./ Over the barren branches he shakes his yellow curls./ Yet is the forest full of the sound of tears"
"A light exists in spring/ Not present on the year/ At any other period./ When March is scarcely here"
