STAAR EOC Reading › Meaning of specific words and phrases
Adapted from “Solitary Death, make me thine own” in Underneath the Bough: A Book of Verses by Michael Field (pseudonym of Katherine Bradley and Edith Cooper) (1893)
Solitary Death, make me thine own,
And let us wander the bare fields together;
Yea, thou and I alone
Roving in unembittered unison forever.
I will not harry thy treasure-graves,
I do not ask thy still hands a lover;
My heart within me craves
To travel till we twain Time’s wilderness discover.
To sojourn with thee my soul was bred,
And I, the courtly sights of life refusing,
To the wide shadows fled,
And mused upon thee often as I fell a-musing.
Escaped from chaos, thy mother Night,
In her maiden breast a burthen that awed her,
By cavern waters white
Drew thee her first-born, her unfathered off-spring toward her.
On dewey plats, near twilight dingle,
She oft, to still thee from men’s sobs and curses
In thine ears a-tingle,
Pours her cool charms, her weird, reviving chaunt rehearses.
Though mortals menace thee or elude,
And from thy confines break in swift transgression.
Thou for thyself art sued
Of me, I claim thy cloudy purlieus my possession.
To a long freshwater, where the sea
Stirs the silver flux of the reeds and willows,
Come thou, and beckon me
To lie in the lull of the sand-sequestered billows:
Then take the life I have called my own
And to the liquid universe deliver;
Loosening my spirit’s zone,
Wrap round me as thy limbs the wind, the light, the river.
In context, what does the bolded and underlined word “Drew” mean?
Pulled
Pushed
Called
Threw
Created an artistic image of
Here, “drew” is used to state that personified “mother Night” pulled her “first born, her un-fathered off-spring toward her.” Death, in this line, is meant to be a child, so it stands that “mother Night” would be physically pulling her child to her, as opposed to calling out for him. “Toward her” suggests that the child is being brought closer, not pushed away. While created an artistic image of is a valid definition for “drew” it does not apply in this context.
Adapted from “Solitary Death, make me thine own” in Underneath the Bough: A Book of Verses by Michael Field (pseudonym of Katherine Bradley and Edith Cooper) (1893)
Solitary Death, make me thine own,
And let us wander the bare fields together;
Yea, thou and I alone
Roving in unembittered unison forever.
I will not harry thy treasure-graves,
I do not ask thy still hands a lover;
My heart within me craves
To travel till we twain Time’s wilderness discover.
To sojourn with thee my soul was bred,
And I, the courtly sights of life refusing,
To the wide shadows fled,
And mused upon thee often as I fell a-musing.
Escaped from chaos, thy mother Night,
In her maiden breast a burthen that awed her,
By cavern waters white
Drew thee her first-born, her unfathered off-spring toward her.
On dewey plats, near twilight dingle,
She oft, to still thee from men’s sobs and curses
In thine ears a-tingle,
Pours her cool charms, her weird, reviving chaunt rehearses.
Though mortals menace thee or elude,
And from thy confines break in swift transgression.
Thou for thyself art sued
Of me, I claim thy cloudy purlieus my possession.
To a long freshwater, where the sea
Stirs the silver flux of the reeds and willows,
Come thou, and beckon me
To lie in the lull of the sand-sequestered billows:
Then take the life I have called my own
And to the liquid universe deliver;
Loosening my spirit’s zone,
Wrap round me as thy limbs the wind, the light, the river.
The bolded and underlined phrase “Escaped from chaos” most likely refers to ________________.
the personified Night's origins
the personified Death’s origins
the speaker’s goal in suggesting a partnership with Death
the action necessary to escape Death
the way the personified Night died
“Escaped from chaos" refers to the origins of the character of “mother Night." This sets up a basic order in which “Night” emerged from chaos, and gave “father-less” birth to “Death.” "Emerging from chaos" can also reasonably be interpreted that "Night" was born of "chaos" or that it simply came out of the night, in a literal sense. In either case, it's not relevant to answering the question as presented.
The speaker is not concerned with escaping Death at all, and specifically suggests that her goal in seeking Death’s companionship is not escape but partnership and peace.