AP Lit Brit-Rom Poems (2024 Test)

Pre romantic

Robert Burns:

  • To a mouse

    • Themes: humans vs animals, life’s unpredictability, pain of awareness 

    • Key words: corn, mouse nest, plow, human domination of earth, 

    • narrator destroyed mouse nest with plow. Feels sorry for mouse & disharmony that exists b/w humans and animals/nature. Doesn’t care that mouse takes corn to eat & survive. is sad that mouse’s hard work gone so easily b/c of him. Talks about how planning for stuff can still lead to disaster, and he envies the mouse b/c he lives moment to moment unlike him who can look at the past and fear the future. 

  • To a louse:

    • Themes: imp of self-awareness, equality, acknowledgment of all life forms 

    • Key Words:

    • Lit stuff: Persona of Burns, satirical tone




William Blake:

  • The Lamb

Themes: God/creation, nature, childhood & innocence

Key Terms: who made thee, wooly bright, stream, mead(river), little lamb

lit devices: apostrophe (talking to lamb), chatachism

First stanza posed as question, 2nd posed as answer

1st stanza: narrator asks lamb if they know who made them, and lamb is depicted as chewing on grass frolicking very happy & nature. also mentions it’s soft wool coat, showing how god is so fire for making all this. 


2nd stanza: speaker is found out to be a child & they rly want to tell lamb who made them. says that creator is very kind and was once a child too. child asks God to bless the lamb twice. 


  • The Tyger

Themes: god/creation, nature, creativity

Key terms: burns brightly, symmetry, seize the fire, dread hand/feet, hammer, chain, anvil

 if you see body parts galore & fire/forge references, it’s prob this poem. 

Lit devices: apostrophe (talking to tiger)

narrator directly talks to tiger & glazes it to the high heavens. mentions which daring and immortal being could, with their hands & feet, create the tiger’s fearsome beauty, muscular body, brain (made in forge), and bring it to life. He asks whether they’re the same person that made lambs. at the end, he talks to tiger, this time not just asking who made it, but who would dare to.




First Gen

William Wordsworth:

  • Lines composed a few miles above tintern abbey

Themes: healing power of nature, sublime, imagination/perception, change that time brings

Key terms: hermit, groves, tranquil restoration, sublime, sylvan Wye, sad music of humanity, my dear, dear sister

if narrator is urban dude & keeps talking ab imagination of nature 5 yrs ago & talks to sister, prob this poem.

lit devices: repetition (five years, five summers, five winters), 

narrator reflects on returning to a landscape he hasn't visited in 5 years (the Wye Valley),  where he finds solace in the sounds and sights of nature. this helped him during urban life, calming him down and offering serenity. He contrasts his youthful self, who experienced nature with intense emotion yet lacked deeper understanding, to his present self, who sees the interconnectedness of all things. This maturity allows him to appreciate nature's beauty.


he then sweetly talks to sister, hoping she will carry the joy of youth longer. He believes nature nurtures and protects individuals, helping them withstand life's challenges. He prays for her future, envisioning her as she matures, filled with beautiful memories and resilience. Even after his passing, he hopes she will remember their shared love for this landscape, which symbolizes a sacred bond between them and a deeper understanding of life.


  • My heart leaps up when I behold

Themes: beauty/comfort from nature, childlike wonder 

Key words: let me die!, natural piety, rainbow 

lit devices: 

every time OP sees rainbow they are really giddy & have been since a child. They’d rather die than not derive joy from rainbow when older. suffering from peter pan syndrome & wants to have childlike wonder of world forever


  • LUCY POEMS: 

    • Strange fits of passion have I known (ballad)

theme: 

key terms:

lit devices:



  • She dwelt among the untrodden ways

theme: virtue/appreciation, love, remote

key terms: violet by mossy stone, star, difference to me

lit devices: allusion (dove river), 

OP talks ab girl who lived in remote area. She lived unknown to many, so ppl didn’t notice when she died. she was like a flower next to big rock so her beauty was often overlooked. now she is forever w/earth & OP is going thru stages of grief


  • I traveled among unknown men

theme: homesick, memories

key terms: england, melancholy dream, shore, english fire, green field 

lit devices: apostrophe (talking to england & showing utter adoration for it), caesura (Nor England! did i…) 

narrator falls more in love w/ england (rip 💔) after taking trips to countries along ocean. he falls in love more w/its mountains & the memories it holds recalling memories of lucy sitting at a spinning wheel, and looking at the green field lucy saw last. 

  • A slumber did my spirit seal

theme: mortality, time

key terms: earthly years, no motion/force, earth’s diurnal course

lit devices: alliteration (slumber spirit seal, rocks rolled round) gives musing tone to poem

OP had no fear of death & thought their s/o was lowkey immortal & couldn’t be affected by passage of time, but now s/o is dead & she’s part of nature now just going around

  • SONNETS:

    • composed upon westminster bridge

theme: tranquility, nature vs civilization, fleeting beauty, 

key terms: garment, ships/towers/domes/, first splendeur, houses seem asleep,

lit devices: hyperbole (most beautiful/tranquil place on earth), personification (london) 

OP think that at dawn time, westminster bridge in london is the most beautiful thing (not clickbait), & you would disagree ONLY if you were dead inside. it’s rly breathtaking: london shines like diamond, & air is clear. sun shines on the still buildings so beautifully & offers tranquility. inactive london at dawn is pretty london.


  • london 1802 (change in form of Italian sonnet -sestet & octet) 

theme: past & now, societal decline, industrialization

key terms: altar/sword/pen, pure as the naked heavens, lowliest duties, star

lit devices: apostrophe (talking to milton), caesura, 

OP is a desperate stan & glazer of John Miltion (poet) & wants him back b/c England has become rotten due to industrialization that’s taken place after he passed. he wants Milton to bring w/him the honor, virtue, and strength (altar, sword, and pen) England had back in his time. also praised him for being so frugal and happy w/that even though he could have done so much with his innate goodness and godliness (pure as the naked heavens). 


  • the world is too much with us late and soon (sonnet)

theme: nature, materialism, industrialization, individual

key terms: a sordid boon, pagan, forlorn, proteus rising from the sea, triton blow his wreathèd horn, “Great God!”

lit devices: caesura

Narrator hates how industrialization has led us to not appreciate nature & lose the ability to connect w/ & find peace within nature. he mentions the beauty of waves, the moon, winds, and flowers, but many are “out of tune” & can’t appreciate it. he wishes he was an outdated pagan so that he could 1) gain the ability of appreciating nature back, 2) possibly see proteus taking shape 3) possibly hear triton blowing his horn (conch shell)


Samuel Tyler Coleridge:

  • The rime of the ancient-mariner

Theme: Upsetting nature, getting punished, scorning gifts, disrupting balance, isolation from both nature and fellow man as punishment

Key terms: Albatross, Life & Death, 

Lit Devices: Gloss (summary of the poem alongside the main poem)

Man gets stopped by an old sailor while on his way to a wedding, tries to flee but gets engrossed by Mariner’s eyes. Gets told story about how he was in the South Pole, they were getting wind, he shot an Albatross that was sign of good luck, got punished by nature, only one of his crew to survive and return home alive



Second Gen

Keats: 

  • ode on a Grecian urn (not completed)

  • music when soft voices die (not completed)

  • when i have fears that i may cease to be (English sonnet)

Theme: romance, fear of death, lowkey nature

key terms: high romance, ripen’d grain, faery power, magic hand of chance, 

lit devices: apostrophe (to girlie pop named ”fair creature of an hour”)

Beginning of quatrain begins w/ “when I”

OP worried he cant write all his ideas into poems b/4 he dies. He’s desperate for love, & is sad that he’lll die alone and a loser L+bozo. He’s talking to his crush. vry alone in nature thinking about all this 

  • When I have fears: starts death part

  • When I behold: starts love part

  • When I feel: starts love about fair creature part (includes couplet)




Lord Byron:

  • When we two parted

    • Meter: Iambic pentameter 

    • The poem keeps going back and forth with anapestic (One heavy beat and 2 light beats) 

    • It has a 5th stanza.

    • Spondee (two stressed syllables at the same time): 

  • “long, long shall I rue thee” - showing that he’s going to be feeling this for a good while


  • she walks in beauty

  • there be none of beauty’s daughters

    • Key words: charmed, lull’s, infant,  adore, magic

    • Meter: hes just playing around

    • Themes: Idealization of a woman 

    • Lit stuff: diction (being mesmerized)

    • He’s hypnotized by her when she’s asleep. 


Percy Bysshe Shelly: 

To --:

Theme: memory lives longer than the sense (when people die and songs end, we have the memories)

Each 2 lines change subject:

  • Music: after song ends, we remember the song

  • Odors: after sense fades, we remember the smell

  • Rose leaves

  • Person: memory of love for person after death

key terms:

lit devices: extended metaphor (entire poem)

when person is dead you remember memory of love for the person 

Not all extended metaphors are conceits, but all conceits are extended metaphors



Lift not the painted veil:

Theme: Revelations and stuff like that

key terms: unreal shapes,  twin destinies, splendor among shadows, 

lit devices: allusion to bible ecclesiastes

Misc: changes italian sonnet form

Background info for Sonnet (lift not the painted veil): cave ppl are chained in a cave and believe that cave is reality. One person gets out of cave but the rest believe he is insane after he comes back


Ozymandias:

Theme: fleeting power

key terms: antique land, cool local wreck, king of kings, shattered visage

lit devices: Ellipses in the middle of the poem showing how tthe middle of the statue is taken out. (3rd line down from top). And then came sure 3rd line down from bottom. Look at that symmetry! 

Ramses thinks that he is all-powerful but he dies and he is eventually forgotten look at this loser 😔 🏳‍🌈 🔫. Statue in 3 pieces but only got ⅔ pieces of statue. Statue being broken showing how power and reputation is lost to time. 

Horace Smith wrote a version where he uses the sestet to talk about what will happen when London is long forgotten