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Two important features of every poem are its tone and its mood .
TONE — The Poet’s Attitude
Tone
is the way the
poet
feels about her subject — the “voice” in which she speaks. Here, the poet’s tone is:
Appreciative
Full of Praise
Warm
Loving
The poet speaks with
praise and love
. She is
appreciative
— she treats the garden as a beautiful
painting
and the gardener as a true
artist
.
MOOD — What the Reader Feels
Mood
is the feeling the
reader
gets after reading the poem. Here, the poem fills the reader with:
Joyful
Happy
Fresh
Peaceful
Hopeful
After reading, the reader feels
joyful and fresh
— as if walking through a colourful garden in the morning light.
Quick way to remember the difference:
Tone
= how the
poet
feels (poet’s side).
Mood
= how the
reader
feels (your side).
Rhyme Scheme and Rhythm
‘Canvas of Soil’ is written in rhymed couplets with the scheme AABB — in every stanza, lines 1 and 2 rhyme with each other, and lines 3 and 4 rhyme with each other. It is not free verse .
The rhyming pairs (couplets) in the poem
- Stanza 1 — deep / seep (Lines 1–2) and true / hue (Lines 3–4).
- Stanza 2 — sight / light (Lines 5–6) and blue / new (Lines 7–8).
- Stanza 3 — wide / coincide (Lines 9–10) and till / still (Lines 11–12).
- The effect — the rhyming pairs give the poem a steady, song-like beat , like soft music playing while the garden grows.
In one line for the exam:
The poem follows a fixed
AABB rhyme scheme
(rhymed couplets); pairs like
deep/seep
and
till/still
give it a
steady, song-like rhythm
.
