(4) Base Camp
This poem isn't very hard, but it's also not a total breeze. For starters, we get a lot of poetic devices like metaphor and simile in the poem. We may not immediately understand what the "stony" road refers to or, for that matter, the "chastening rod." In the end, some of the dated vocabulary can prove slow-going for a modern reader. Luckily, we've got your back, Shmoopers. Just follow us on that path to enlightenment.