GCSE ENGLISH LITERATURE PAST AND PRESENT: POETRY ANTHOLOGY Cluster 2 Power and conflictPercy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822) Ozymandias 1 | met a traveller from an antique land Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand, Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown 5 And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command Tell that its sculptor well those passions read Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things, The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed; And on the pedestal these words appear: 10 ‘My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despait!” Nothing beside remains. Round the decay Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare, The lone and level sands stretch far away. ey English Oovelop your learning on AOA English e-LibraryGCSE ENGLISH LITERATURE PAST AND PRESENT: POETRY ANTHOLOGY William Blake (1757-1827) London 1 I wander through each chartered street, Near where the chartered Thames does flow, ‘And mark in every face | meet Marks of weakness, marks of woe. 5 Inevery cry of every man, In every infant's cry of fear, In every voice, in every ban, The mind-forged manacles | hear: How the chimney-sweeper’s cry 10 Every black’ning church appalls, And the hapless soldier's sigh Runs in blood down palace walls. But most through midnight streets | hear How the youthful harlot's curse 15 Blasts the new-born infant's tear, And blights with plagues the marriage hearse. aqnorguenglsh-e-tbrary 27William Wordsworth (1770-1850) Extract from, The Prelude 1 One summer evening (led by her) I found Allittle boat tied to a willow tree Within a rocky cove, its usual home. Straight | unloosed her chain, and stepping in 5 Pushed from the shore. It was an act of stealth And troubled pleasure, nor without the voice ‘Of mountain-echoes did my boat move on; Leaving behind her still, on either side, Small circles glittering idly in the moon, 10 Until they melted all into one track Of sparkling light. But now, like one who rows, Proud of his skill, to reach a chosen point With an unswerving line, | fixed my view Upon the summit of a craggy ridge, 15 The horizon’s utmost boundary; far above Was nothing but the stars and the grey sky. ‘She was an elfin pinnace; lustily | dipped my oars into the silent lake, And, as | rose upon the stroke, my boat 20 Went heaving through the water like a swan; When, from behind that craggy steep till then The horizon’s bound, a hugé peak, black and huge, As if with voluntary power instinct, Upreared its head. | struck and struck again, 25 And growing still in stature the grim shape Towered up between me and the stars, and still, For so it seemed, with purpose of its own And measured motion like a living thing, Strode after me. With trembling oars | turned, 30 And through the silent water stole my way 28 GEER Decor yurernry nln ginnyGCSE ENGLISH LITERATURE PAST AND PRESENT: POETRY ANTHOLOGY 35 40 Back to the covert of the willow tree; There in her mooring-place | left my bark, ~ ‘And through the meadows homeward went, in grave And serious mood; but after I had seen That spectacle, for many days, my brain Worked with a dim and undetermined sense (Of unknown modes of being; o'er my thoughts ‘There hung a darkness, call it solitude Or blank desertion. No familiar shapes Remained, no pleasant images of trees, Of sea or sky, no colours of green field: But huge and mighty forms, that do not live Like living men, moved slowly through the mind By day, and were a trouble to my dreams. aya.reublenglsh-e-brary 29Robert Browning (1812-1889) My Last Duchess Ferrara 1 That's my last Duchess painted on the wall, Looking as if she were alive. | call That piece a wonder, now: Fra Pandolf’s hands Worked busily a day, and there she stands. 5 Willt please you sit and look at her? | said ‘Fra Pandolf’ by design, for never read Strangers like you that pictured countenance, ‘The depth and passion of its earnest glance, But to myself they turned (since none puts by 410. The curtain | have drawn for you, but |) ‘And seemed as they would ask me, if they durst, How such a glance came there; so, not the first ‘Are you to turn and ask thus. Sir, ‘twas not Her husband's presence only, called that spot 15 Of joy into the Duchess’ cheek: perhaps Fra Pandolf chanced to say ‘Her mantle laps Over my lady's wrist too much,’ or ‘Paint Must never hope to reproduce the faint Half-flush that dies along her throat’: such stuff 20 Was courtesy, she thought, and cause enough For calling up that spot of joy. She had ‘A heart - how shall | say? ~ too soon made glad, Too easily impressed; she liked whate'er She looked on, and her looks went everywhere. 25. Sir, ‘twas all one! My favour at her breast, The dropping of the daylight in the West, The bough of cherries some officious fool Broke in the orchard for her, the white mule DDovelop your learning on AQA English e-Library 0 Bae30 35 40 45 50 55 GCSE ENGLISH LITERATURE PAST AND PRESENT: POETRY ANTHOLOGY She rode with round the terrace ~ all and each Would draw from her alike the approving speech, Or blush, at least. She thanked men, - good! but thanked Somehow ~ | know not how ~as if she ranked My gift of a nine-hundred-years-old name With anybody's gift. Who'd stoop to blame This sort of trifling? Even had you skill In speech ~ (which | have not) - to make your will Quite clear to such an one, and say, ‘Just this Or that in you disgusts me; here you miss, Or there exceed the mark’ - and if she let Herself be lessoned so, nor plainly set Her wits to yours, forsooth, and made excuse, ~E’en then would be some stooping; and | choose Never to stoop. Oh sir, she smiled, no doubt, Whene’er I passed her; but who passed without Much the same smile? This grew; | gave commands; Then all smiles stopped together. There she stands As if alive. Will't please you rise? We'll meet The company below, then. | repeat, The Count your master’s known munificence Is ample warrant that no just pretence Of mine for dowry will be disallowed; Though his fair daughter's self, as | avowed At starting, is my object. Nay, we'll go Together down, sit. Notice Neptune, though, Taming a sea-horse, thought a rarity, Which Claus of Innsbruck cast in bronze for me! agacrguidenglsh-e-libraty 31Alfred Lord Tennyson (1809-1892) The Charge of the Light Brigade 1. 1 Half a league, half a league, Half a league onward, All in the valley of Death Rode the six hundred. 5 ‘Forward, the Light Brigade! Charge for the guns!’ he said: Into the valley of Death Rode the six hundred. ‘Forward, the Light Brigade!’ 10 Was there a man dismay'd? Not tho’ the soldier knew Some one had blunder’ Theirs notto make reply, Theirs not to reason why, 15 Theirs but to do and die: Into the valley of Death Rode the six hundred, 3. Cannon to right of them, Cannon to left of them, 20 Cannon in front of them Volley'd'and thunder’ ‘Storm’d at with shot and shell, Boldly they rode and well, Into the jaws of Death, 25. Into the mouth of Hell Rode the six hundred. 30 35 40 45 50 55 4, Flash'd all their sabres bare, Flash'd as they turn'd in air Sabring the gunners there, Charging an army, while All the world wonder'd: Plunged in the battery-smoke Right thro’ the line they broke; Cossack and Russian Reel'd from the sabre-stroke Shatter’d and sunder'd. Then they rode back, but not Not the six hundred. 6. Cannon to right of them, Cannon to left of them, Cannon behind them Volley'd and thunder'd; Storm’d at with shot and shell, While horse and hero fell, They that had fought so well Came thro’ the jaws of Death Back from the mouth of Hell, All that was left of them, Left of six hundred. 6. When oan their glory fade? O the wild charge they madel All the world wonder'd. Honour the charge they made! Honour the Light Brigade, Noble six hundred! 32 Be Ehgtish —oevetop your earning on ADA Engsh e-LibraryGCSE ENGLISH LITERATURE PAST AND PRESENT: POETRY ANTHOLOGY Wilfred Owen (1893-1918) Exposure 40 15 20 25 ‘Our brains ache, in the merciless iced east winds that knive Us... : Wearied we keep awake because the night is silent .. Low, drooping flares confuse our memory of the salient ... Worried by silence, sentries whisper, curious, nervous, But nothing happens. Watching, we hear the mad gusts tugging on the wire, Like twitching agonies of men among its brambles. Northward, incessantly, the flickering gunnery rumbles, Far off, ike a dull rumour of some other war. What are we doing here? The poignant misery of dawn begins to grow ... We only know war lasts, rain soaks, and clouds sag stormy. Dawn massing in the east her melancholy army ‘Attacks once more in ranks on shivering ranks of grey, But nothing happens. ‘Sudden successive flights of bullets streak the silence. Less deadly than the air that shudders black with snow, With sidelong flowing flakes that flock, pause, and renew, We watch them wandering up and down the wind’s nonchalance, But nothing happens. Pale flakes with fingering stealth come feeling for our faces ~ We cringe in holes, back on forgotten dreams, and stare, snow-dazed, Deep into grassier ditches. So we drowse, sun-dozed, Littered with blossoms trickling where the blackbird fusses. ~Is it that we are dying? aqaorguklenglsh-o-brary 33,30 35 40 3 Slowly our ghosts drag home: glimpsing the sunk fires, glozed With crusted dark-red jewels; crickets jingle there; For hours the innocent mice rejoice: the house is theirs; Shutters and doors, all closed: on us the doors are closed, - We turn back to our dying. Since we believe not otherwise can kind fires burn; Nor ever suns smile true on child, or field, or fruit. For God's invincible spring our love is made afraid; Therefore, not loath, we lie out here; therefore were born, For love of God seems dying. Tonight, this frost will fasten on this mud and us, Shrivelling many hands, puckering foreheads crisp. The burying-party, picks and shovels in shaking grasp, Pause over half-known faces. Alll their eyes are ice, But nothing happens. Eigen down rr arng o AONESeamus Heaney (1939-2013) Storm on the Island 1 Weare prepared: we build our houses squat, Sink walls in rock and roof them with good slate. This wizened earth has never troubled us With hay, so, as you see, there are no stacks 5 Orstooks that can be lost. Nor are there trees Which might prove company when it blows full Blast: you know what | mean - leaves and branches Can raise a tragic chorus in a gale So that you can listen to the thing you fear 10 Forgetting that it pummels your house too. But there are no trees, no natural shelter. You might think that the sea is company, Exploding comfortably down on the cliffs But no: when it begins, the flung spray hits 15 The very windows, spits like a tame cat Turned savage. We just sit tight while wind dives And strafes invisibly. Space is a salvo. We are bombarded by the empty ai. Strange, It is @ huge nothing that we fear. GCSE ENGLISH LITERATURE PAST AND PRESENT: POETRY ANTHOLOGY aqaorgukdenglish-e-rary 35Ted Hughes (1930-1998) Bayonet Charge 10 15 20 ‘Suddenly he awoke and was running ~ raw In raw-seamed hot khaki, his sweat heavy, ‘Stumbling across a field of clods towards a green hedge That dazzled with rifle fire, hearing Bullets smacking the belly out of the air - He lugged a rifle numb as a smashed arm; The patriotic tear that had brimmed in his eye ‘Sweating like motten iron from the centre of his chest, - In bewilderment then he almost stopped - In what cold clockwork of the stars and the nations Was he the hand pointing that second? He was running Like a man who has jumped up in the dark and runs Listening between his footfalls for the reason Of his still running, and his foot hung like Statuary in mid-stride. Then the shot-slashed furrows Threw up a yellow hare that rolled like a flame And crawled in a threshing circle, its mouth wide Open silent, its eyes standing out. He plunged past with his bayonet toward the green hedge, King, honour, human dignity, etcetera Dropped like luxurjes in a yelling alarm To get out of that blue crackling air His terror’s touchy dynamite. 36 Bison oven ari AA NyGCSE ENGLISH LITERATURE PAST AND PRESENT: POETRY ANTHOLOGY Simon Armitage (b.1963) Remains 1 Onanother occasion, we get sent out to tackle looters raiding a bank. ‘And one of them legs it up the road, probably armed, possibly not. 5 Well myself and somebody else and somebody else are all of the same mind, so all three of us open fire. ‘Three of a kind all letting fly, and | swear | see every round as it rips through his life - 10 | see broad daylight on the other side. So we've hit this looter a dozen times and he’s there on the ground, sort of inside out, pain itself, the image of agony. One of my mates goes by 15 and tosses his guts back into his body. Then he’s carted off in the back of a lorry. End of story, except not really. His blood-shadow stays on the street, and out on patrol I walk right over it week after week. 20 Then I'm home on leave. But | blink agaorgublengizh-e-lbrary 37 —25 30 and he bursts again through the doors of the bank. Sleep, and he’s probably armed, possibly not. Dream, and he's torn apart by a dozen rounds. ‘And the drink and the drugs won't flush him out — he's here in my head when I close my eyes, dug in behind enemy lines, not left for dead in some distant, sun-stunned, sand-smothered land or six-feet-under in desert sand, but near to the knuckle, here and now, his bloody life in my bloody hands. 8 nalish Develop your leering on AQA Ena e-LitraryJane Weir (b. 1963) Poppies 1 Three days before Armistice Sunday and poppies had already been placed on individual war graves. Before you left, | pinned one onto your lapel, crimped petals, 5 spasms of paper red, disrupting a blockade of yellow bias binding around your blazer, Sellotape bandaged around my hand, rounded up as many white cat hairs as | could, smoothed down your shit's 10 upturned collar, steeled the softening of my face. | wanted to graze my nose aoross the tip of your nose, play at being Eskimos like we did when you were little, | resisted the impulse 15 to,run my fingers through the gelled blackthorns of your hair. All my words flattened, rolled, turned into felt, slowly melting. | was brave, as | walked with you, to the front door, threw 20. it open, the world overflowing like a treasure chest. A split second and you were away, intoxicated. After you'd gone I went into your bedroom, released a song bird from its cage. 25 Later a single dove flew from the pear tree, and this is where it has led me, skirting the church yard walls, my stomach busy making tucks, darts, pleats, hat-less, without a winter coat or reinforcements of scarf, gloves. GCSE ENGLISH LITERATURE PAST AND PRESENT: POETRY ANTHOLOGY aqaorgublengish-e-library 3930 35 On reaching the top of the hill | traced the inscriptions on the war memorial, leaned against it like a wishbone. The dove pulled freely against the sky, an ornamental stitch. | listened, hoping to hear your playground voice catching on the wind. 40 Fe Bgten einai naan hry fatGCSE ENGLISH LITERATURE PAST AND PRESENT: POETRY ANTHOLOGY Carol Ann Duffy 9 (p, 1955) War Photographer 4 Inhis darkroom he is finally alone with spools of suffering set out in ordered rows. The only light is red and softly glows, as though this were a church and he 5 apriest preparing to intone a Mass. Belfast. Beirut. Phnom Penh. All flesh is grass. He has a job to do. Solutions slop in trays beneath his hands, which did not tremble then though seem to now. Rural England. Home again 10 to ordinary pain which simple weather can dispel, to fields which don’t explode beneath the feet of running children in a nightmare heat. ‘Something is happening. A stranger's features faintly start to twist before his eyes, 15 ahalf-formed ghost. He remembers the cries, of this man’s wife, how he sought approval without words to do what someone must and how the blood stained into foreign dust. Abundred agonies in black-and-white 20. from which his editor will pick out five or six for Sunday's supplement. The reader’s eyeballs prick with tears between the bath and pre-lunch beers. From the aeroplane he stares impassively at where he earns his living and they do not care. ana.orguklengih-e-lbrary 42\ Imtiaz | Dharker (b.1954) Tissue 10 15 20 Paper that lets the light shine through, this is what could alter things. Paper thinned by age or touching, the kind you find in well-used books, the back of the Koran, where a hand has written in the names and histories, who was born to whom, the height and weight, who died where and how, on which sepia date, pages smoothed and stroked and turned transparent with attention. If buildings were paper, | might feel their drift, see how easily they fall away on a sigh, a shift in the direction of the wind. Maps too. The sun shines through their borderlines, the marks that rivers make, roads, railtracks, mountainfolds, Fine slips from grocery shops that say how much was sold and what was paid by credit card might fly our lives like paper kites. 25 30 35 Ar architect could use all this, place layer over layer, luminous script over numbers over line, and never wish to build again with brick or block, but let the daylight break through capitals and monoliths, through the shapes that pride can make, find a way to trace a grand design with living tissue, raise a structure never meant to last, of paper smoothed and stroked and thinned to be transparent, turned into your skin. @ BE Develop your learning on AOA English e-LibraryGCSE ENGLISH LITERATURE PAST AND PRESENT: POETRY ANTHOLOGY 4 Carol Rumens. (b.1944) The Emigrée 1 There once was a country... | left it as a child but my memory of it is sunlight-clear for it seems | never saw it in that November which, | am told, comes to the mildest city. 5 The worst news | receive of it cannot break my original view, the bright, filled paperweight. It may be at war, it may be sick with tyrants, but | am branded by an impression of sunlight. The white streets of that city, the graceful slopes 10 glow even clearer as time rolls its tanks and the frontiers rise between us, close like waves. That child's vocabulary | carried here like a hollow doll, opens and spills a grammar. Soon | shall have every coloured molecule of it. 15 It may by now be a lie, banned by the state but I can't get it off my tongue. It tastes of sunlight. I have no passport, there's no way back at all but my city comes to me in its own white plane. It lies down in front of me, docile as paper; 20. I comb its hair and love its shining eyes. My city takes me dancing through the city of walls. They accuse me of absence, they circle me. They accuse me of being dark in their free city. My city hides behind me, They mutter death, 30 and my shadow falls as evidence of sunlight. ana.orguklenalish-e-lbrary 43John Agard (b. 1949) Checking Out Me History 40 15 20 25 4 Dem tell me Dem tell me Wha dem want to tell me Bandage up me eye with me own history Blind me to me own identity Dem tell me bout 1066 and all dat dem tell me bout Dick Whittington and he cat But Toussaint LOuverture no dem never tell me bout dat Toussaint aslave with vision lick back Napoleon battalion and first Black Republic born Toussaint de thorn to de French Toussaint de beacon of de Haitian Revolution Dem tell me bout de man who discover de balloon and de cow who jump over de moon Dem tell me bout de dish ran away with de spoon but dem never tell me bout Nanny de maroon Fe Bish oocopyareumig AA Egan eva30 35 40 45 50 Nanny see-far woman of mountain dream fire-woman struggle hopeful stream to freedom river Dem tell me bout Lord Nelson and Waterloo but dem never tell me bout Shaka de great Zulu Dem tell me bout Columbus and 1492 but what happen to de Carbs and de Arawaks too Dem tell me bout Florence Nightingale and she lamp and how Robin Hood used to camp Dem tell me bout ole King Cole was a merry ole soul but dem never tell me bout Mary Seacole From Jamaica she travel far to the Crimean War she volunteer to go and even when de British said no she still brave the Russian snow a healing star among the wounded a yellow sunrise to the dying Dem tell me Dem tell me wha dem want to tell me But now I checking out me own history I carving out me identity GCSE ENGLISH LITERATURE PAST AND PRESEN OETRY ANTHOLOGY aga.orguklengish-ectbrary 45Beatrice Garland (b. 1938) Kamikaze 1 Her father embarked at sunrise with a flask of water, a samurai sword In the cockpit, a shaven head full of powerful incantations 5 and enough fuel for a one-way journey into history but half way there, she thought, recounting it later to her children, he must have looked far down 10 at the littl fishing boats strung out like bunting ona green-blue translucent sea and beneath them, arcing in swathes like a huge flag waved first one way 15. then the other in a figure of eight, the dark shoals of fishes flashing silver as their bellies swivelled towards the sun and remembered how he and 20 his brothers waiting on the shore built calms of pearl-grey pebbles to see whose withstood longest the turbulent inrush of breakers bringing their father’s boat safe 46 Efglish Develop your learning on ADA English e-LibraryGCSE ENGLISH LITERATURE PAST AND PRESENT: POETRY ANTHOLOGY 25 30 35 40 ~ yes, grandfather's boat ~ safe to the shore, salt-sodden, awash with cloud-marked mackerel, black crabs, feathery prawns, the loose silver of whitebait and once a tuna, the dark prince, muscular, dangerous. ‘And though he came back my mother never spoke again : in his presence, nor did she meet his eyes and the neighbours too, they treated him as though he no longer existed, only we children still chattered and laughed till gradually we too learned to be silent, to live as though he had never returned, that this was no longer the father we loved. And sometimes, she said, he must have wondered which had been the better way to die, aqa.crguklengish-e-tbrary 47