DIRECTIONS: Read each sentence below. Explain how it uses personification. 1. The sun glared down at us. 2. The trees whispered amongst themselves. 3. The birds beckoned us outside with their songs. 4. The thirsty earth drank in the rain. 5. Opportunity only knocks once. 6. Night snuggled against the countryside. 7. The house gazed back with wide, blank eyes.

The poem is an unconventional sonnet; it develops a main idea in the first twelve lines, and is capped by a big thought in the final couplet. the poem follows a narrator describing the industriousness of nature’s creatures, preparing for the coming spring. all of creation is at work, but the speaker is sullen as the only creature he can see who finds himself without an occupation.