Question

I'm not sure if I understand what Cacophony and Euphony are, can someone help me understand please?

For my assignment, I'm supposed to find 3 different Figurative Language (Techniques) in this poem:
(posted below in a comment!)
One of them is obviously personification.
I thought that there was also cacophony and Euphony present, but I'm not sure though. So it would be wonderful if someone could help me understand what they are!

(Hopefully I'm posting in the right section this time, I posted in the math section last time. Oh geez, I got in trouble with some people!)

Answer 1

When I was a child

the stones were living.

Hot under my hand, they felt like flesh,

and sands slipped through my fingers

with a caress.

Yes, everything was alive;

the clumsy, roaring wind

stepped on the flounched pink dress

of the apple-tree,

tearing it to shreds

the puffed cheeks of clouds

the brook with its pebbled tongue

and the hoarse old grave old sea

its gravelly song

and eath itself a brown warm girl

turning and tanning in the sun.

All false, all wrong,

somebody told me:

winds are not lovers

clumsy or gentle.

There's no blood

in stones,

no tears in water.

Nevertheless

sometimes lately when I touch a chair or table

I think I feel atoms stir

under my fingers

and at night in dreams I hear

the small remote voices of grains of dust

or the inaudible whispers of stars

as they will speak to me some time

when i lie with the living grass about me

and the wind my old lover

singing me to sleep

and to wake

Answer 2

So I did highlight some examples of cacophony and euphony in my copy of the poem (at least from what I thought), would you be able to tell me if I'm right?

Cacophony:

- Clumsy, roaring wind
- Gravely song

Euphony:
- flounced
- puffed
- small remote voices
- inaudible whispers

Answer 3

Okay so actually I do understand it now, someone on the math forum helped me out! So disregard this question people :)

Answer 4

So, figures of speech (or, figurative language) is divided into two types: schemes and tropes. Schemes have to do with sound or arrangement, and tropes have to do with meaning. Most of the time when we talk about figurative language, I think we are thinking of the latter category. But, just to confuse the issue, different critics sometimes divide these up a little differently.

Anyway, you are clear on what euphony and cacophony are as techniques of style. Just in case you'd like some more material on the overall picture, you might want to take a look at these --

http://schools.sd68.bc.ca/dove/teachers/rmckean/poeticmatters.html

http://www.mrgunnar.net/ap.cfm?subpage=347181

http://web.cn.edu/kwheeler/documents/Schemes_n_Tropes.pdf

http://web.cn.edu/kwheeler/tropes.html