unseen poem preparation anthology
TRANSCRIPT
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Edexcel GCSE
Unseen Poem Preparation AnthologyGCSE English and English Literature
A LWAY S L E A R N I NG
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The Thought-Fox 2Ted Hughes
Digging 3Seamus Heaney
Colonel Fazackerley 4Charles Causley
Everyone Sang 6Siegfried Sassoon
And Still I Rise 7Maya Angelou
How Do I Love Thee? 8Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Hope is the thing with feathers 9Emily Dickinson
First Love 10John Clare
Annabel Lee 11Edgar Allan Poe
The Road Not Taken 13Robert Frost
Variations on the word love 14Margaret Atwood
City lilacs 15Helen Dunmore
Last Lesson of the Afternoon 16 DH LawrenceAt Castle Boterel 17Thomas Hardy
In Salutation to the Eternal Peace 18Sarojini Naidu
1
Ueen Poem Preparatio
n nthology
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2
Ueen Poem Preparatio
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The Thought-Fox
I imagine this midnight moments forest:
Something else is alive
Beside the clocks loneliness
And this blank page where my fingers move.
5 Through the window I see no star:
Something more near
Though deeper within darkness
Is entering the loneliness:
Cold, delicately as the dark snow,
10 A foxs nose touches twig, leaf;
Two eyes serve a movement, that now
And again now, and now, and now
Sets neat prints into the snow
Between trees, and warily a lame
15 Shadow lags by stump and in hollow
Of a body that is bold to come
Across clearings, an eye,
A widening deepening greenness,
Brilliantly, concentratedly,
20 Coming about its own business
Till, with a sudden sharp hot stink of fox
It enters the dark hole of the head.
The window is starless still; the clock ticks,
The page is printed.
Ted Hughes
The Thought-Fox by Ted Hughes
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3
Ueen Poem Preparatio
n nthology Digging by Seamus Heaney
Digging
Between my finger and my thumb
The squat pen rests; snug as a gun.
Under my window, a clean rasping sound
When the spade sinks into gravelly ground:
5 My father, digging. I look down
Till his straining rump among the flowerbeds
Bends low, comes up twenty years away
Stooping in rhythm through potato drills
Where he was digging.
10 The coarse boot nestled on the lug, the shaft
Against the inside knee was levered firmly.
He rooted out tall tops, buried the bright edge deep
To scatter new potatoes that we picked,
Loving their cool hardness in our hands.
15 By God, the old man could handle a spade.
Just like his old man.
My grandfather cut more turf in a day
Than any other man on Toners bog.
Once I carried him milk in a bottle
20 Corked sloppily with paper. He straightened up
To drink it, then fell to right away
Nicking and slicing neatly, heaving sods
Over his shoulder, going down and down
For the good turf. Digging.
25 The cold smell of potato mould, the squelch and slap
Of soggy peat, the curt cuts of an edge
Through living roots awaken in my head.
But Ive no spade to follow men like them.
Between my finger and my thumb
30 The squat pen rests.
Ill dig with it.
Seamus Heaney
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4
Ueen Poem Preparatio
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Colonel Fazackerley
Colonel Fazackerley Butterworth-Toast
Bought an old castle complete with a ghost,
But someone or other forgot to declare
To Colonel Fazack that the spectre was there.
5 On the very first evening, while waiting to dine,
The Colonel was taking a fine sherry wine,
When the ghost, with a furious flash and a flare,
Shot out of the chimney and shivered, 'Beware!'
Colonel Fazackerley put down his glass
10 And said, 'My dear fellow, that's really first class!
I just can't conceive how you do it at all.
I imagine you're going to a Fancy Dress Ball?'
At this, the dread ghost gave a withering cry.
Said the Colonel (his monocle firm in his eye),
15 'Now just how you do it I wish I could think.
Do sit down and tell me, and please have a drink.'
The ghost in his phosphorous cloak gave a roar
And floated about between ceiling and floor.
He walked through a wall and returned through a pane
20 And backed up the chimney and came down again.
Said the Colonel, 'With laughter I'm feeling quite weak!'
(As trickles of merriment ran down his cheek).
'My house-warming party I hope you won't spurn.
You must say you'll come and you'll give us a turn!'
Colonel Fazackerley by Charles Causley
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5
Ueen Poem Preparatio
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25 Whereupon, the poor spectre - quite out of his wits -
Proceeded to shake himself almost to bits.
He rattled his chains and he clattered his bones
And he filled the whole castle with mumbles and moans.
But Colonel Fazackerley, just as before,
30 Was simply delighted and called out, 'Encore!'
At which the ghost vanished, his efforts in vain,
And never was seen at the castle again.
'Oh dear, what a pity!' said Colonel Fazack.
'I don't know his name, so I can't call him back.'
35 And then with a smile that was hard to define,
Colonel Fazackerley went in to dine.
Charles Causley
Colonel Fazackerley by Charles Causley
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6
Ueen Poem Preparatio
n nthology
Everyone Sang
Everyone suddenly burst out singing;
And I was filled with such delight
As prisoned birds must find in freedom,
Winging wildly across the white
5 Orchards and dark-green fields; ononand out of sight.
Everyones voice was suddenly lifted;
And beauty came like the setting sun:
My heart was shaken with tears; and horror
Drifted away ... O, but Everyone
10 Was a bird; and the song was wordless; the singing will never be done.
Siegfried Sassoon
Everyone Sang by Siegfried Sassoon
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7
Ueen Poem Preparatio
n nthology
And Still I Rise
You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like the dust, I'll rise.
5 Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?
'Cause I walk like I've got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.
Just like moons and like suns,
10 With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I'll rise.
Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
15 Shoulders falling down like teardrops,
Weakened by my soulful cries.
Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don't you take it awful hard
'Cause I laugh like I've got gold mines
20 Diggin' in my own back yard.
You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like the air, I'll rise.
25 Does my sexiness upset you?
Does it come as a surprise
That I dance like I've got diamonds
At the meeting of my thighs?
Out of the huts of history's shame
30 I rise
Up from a past that's rooted in pain
I rise
I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.
35 Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that's wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
40 I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise.
Maya Angelou
And Still I Rise by Maya Angelou
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8
Ueen Poem Preparatio
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How Do I Love Thee?
How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.
5 I love thee to the level of everydays
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.
I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;
I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.
I love thee with the passion put to use
10 In my old griefs, and with my childhoods faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saintsI love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life!and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning
How Do I Love Thee? by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
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9
Ueen Poem Preparatio
n nthology
Hope is the thing with feathers
'Hope' is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul
And sings the tune without the words
And never stops at all
5 And sweetest in the Gale is heard
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little Bird
That kept so many warm
I've heard it in the chillest land
10 And on the strangest Sea
Yet never in Extremity,
It asked a crumb of Me.
Emily Dickinson
Hope is the thing with feathers by Emily Dickinson
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10
Ueen Poem Preparatio
n nthology
First Love
I ne'er was struck before that hour
With love so sudden and so sweet;
Her face it bloomed like a sweet flower
And stole my heart away complete.
5 My face turned pale as deadly pale
My legs refused to walk away
And when she looked, what could I ail
My life and all seemed turned to clay.
And then my blood rushed to my face,
10 And took my eyesight quite away;
The trees and bushes round the place
Seemed midnight at noonday.
I could not see a single thing
Words from my eyes did start
15 They spoke as chords do from the string
And blood burnt round my heart.
Are flowers the winter's choice?
Is love's bed always snow?
She seemed to hear my silent voice
20 Not love's appeals to know.
I never saw so sweet a face
As that I stood before;
My heart has left its dwelling-place
And can return no more.
John Clare
First Love by John Clare
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11
Ueen Poem Preparatio
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Annabel Lee
It was many and many a year ago,
In a kingdom by the sea,
That a maiden there lived whom you may know
By the name of Annabel Lee;
5 And this maiden she lived with no other thought
Than to love and be loved by me.
I was a child and she was a child,
In this kingdom by the sea,
But we loved with a love that was more than love
10 I and my Annabel Lee
With a love that the wingd seraphs in Heaven
Coveted her and me.
And this was the reason that, long ago,
In this kingdom by the sea,
15 A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling
My beautiful Annabel Lee;
So that her high-born kinsman came
And bore her away from me,
To shut her up in a sepulcher
20 In this kingdom by the sea.
The angels, not half so happy in Heaven,
Went envying her and me:
Yes! that was the reason (as all men know,
In this kingdom by the sea)
25 That the wind came out of the cloud, by night,
Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee.
Annabel Lee by Edgar Allan Poe
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12
Ueen Poem Preparatio
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But our love it was stronger by far than the love
Of those who were older than we
Of many far wiser than we
30 And neither the angels in Heaven above,
Nor the demons down under the sea,
Can ever dissever my soul from the soul
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee:
For the moon never beams without bringing me dreams
35 Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And the stars never rise but I feel the bright eyes
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side
Of my darling, my darling, my life and my bride,
40 In the sepulcher there by the sea
In her tomb by the sounding sea.
Edgar Allan Poe
Annabel Lee by Edgar Allan Poe
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13
Ueen Poem Preparatio
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The Road Not Taken
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
5 To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim
Because it was grassy and wanted wear,
Though as for that the passing there
10 Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
15 I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I
I took the one less traveled by,
20 And that has made all the difference.
Robert Frost
The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost
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14
Ueen Poem Preparatio
n nthology
Variations on the word love
This is a word we use to plug
holes with. It's the right size for those warm
blanks in speech, for those red heart-
shaped vacancies on the page that look nothing
5 like real hearts. Add lace
and you can sell
it. We insert it also in the one empty
space on the printed form
that comes with no instructions. There are whole
10 magazines with not much in them
but the word love, you can
rub it all over your body and you
can cook with it too. How do we know
it isn't what goes on at the cool
15 debaucheries of slugs under damp
pieces of cardboard? As for the weed-
seedlings nosing their tough snouts up
among the lettuces, they shout it.
Love! Love! sing the soldiers, raising
20 their glittering knives in salute.
Variations on the word love by Margaret Atwood
Then there's the two
of us. This word
is far too short for us, it has only
four letters, too sparse
25 to fill those deep bare
vacuums between the stars
that press on us with their deafness.
It's not love we don't wish
to fall into, but that fear.
30 This word is not enough but it will
have to do. It's a single
vowel in this metallic
silence, a mouth that says
O again and again in wonder
35 and pain, a breath, a finger
grip on a cliffside. You can
hold on or let go.
Margaret Atwood
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Ueen Poem Preparatio
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City lilacs
In crack-haunted alleys, overhangs,
plots of sour earth that pass for gardens,
in the space between wall and wheelie bin,
where men with mobiles make urgent conversation,
5 where bare-legged girls shiver in April winds,
where a new mother stands on her doorstep and blinks
at the brightness of morning, so suddenly born
in all these places the city lilacs are pushing
their cones of blossom into the spring
10 to be taken by the warm wind.
Lilac, like love, makes no distinction.
It will open for anyone.
Even before love knows that it is love
lilac knows it must blossom.
15 In crack-haunted alleys, in overhangs,
in somebodys front garden
abandoned to crisp packets and cans,
on landscaped motorway roundabouts,
in the depth of parks
20 where men and women are lost in transactions
of flesh and cash, where mobiles ring
and the deal is done here the city lilacs
release their sweet, wild perfume
then bow down, heavy with rain.
Helen Dunmore
City lilacs by Helen Dunmore
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Ueen Poem Preparatio
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Last Lesson of the Afternoon
When will the bell ring, and end this weariness?
How long have they tugged the leash, and strained apart,
My pack of unruly hounds! I cannot start
Them again on a quarry of knowledge they hate to hunt,
5 I can haul them and urge them no more.
No longer now can I endure the brunt
Of the books that lie out on the desks; a full threescore
Of several insults of blotted pages, and scrawl
Of slovenly work that they have offered me.
10 I am sick, and what on earth is the good of it all?
What good to them or me, I cannot see!
So, shall I take
My last dear fuel of life to heap on my soul
And kindle my will to a flame that shall consume
15 Their dross of indifference; and take the toll
Of their insults in punishment? I will not!
I will not waste my soul and my strength for this.
What do I care for all that they do amiss!
What is the point of this teaching of mine, and of this
20 Learning of theirs? It all goes down the same abyss.
What does it matter to me, if they can write
A description of a dog, or if they can't?
What is the point? To us both, it is all my aunt!
And yet Im supposed to care, with all my might.
25 I do not, and will not; they wont and they dont; and thats all!
I shall keep my strength for myself; they can keep theirs as well.
Why should we beat our heads against the wall
Of each other? I shall sit and wait for the bell.
DH Lawrence
Last Lesson of the Afternoon by DH Lawrence
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17
Ueen Poem Preparatio
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At Castle Boterel
As I drive to the junction of lane and highway,
And the drizzle bedrenches the waggonette,
I look behind at the fading byway,
And see on its slope, now glistening wet,
5 Distinctly yet
Myself and a girlish form benighted
In dry March weather. We climb the road
Beside a chaise. We had just alighted
To ease the sturdy ponys load
10 When he sighed and slowed.
What we did as we climbed, and what we talked of
Matters not much, nor to what it led,
Something that life will not be balked of
Without rude reason till hope is dead,
15 And feeling fled.
At Castle Boterel by Thomas Hardy
It filled but a minute. But was there ever
A time of such quality, since or before,
In that hills story? To one mind never,
Though it has been climbed, foot-swift, foot-sore,
20 By thousands more.
Primaeval rocks form the roads steep border,
And much have they faced there, first and last,
Of the transitory in Earths long order;
But what they record in colour and cast
25 Is - that we two passed.
And to me, though Times unflinching rigour,
In mindless rote, has ruled from sight
The substance now, one phantom figure
Remains on the slope, as when that night
30 Saw us alight.
I look and see it there, shrinking, shrinking,
I look back at it amid the rain
For the very last time; for my sand is sinking,
And I shall traverse old loves domain
35 Never again.
Thomas Hardy
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Ueen Poem Preparatio
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In Salutation to the Eternal Peace
Men say the world is full of fear and hate,
And all lifes ripening harvest-fields await
The restless sickle of relentless fate.
But I, sweet Soul, rejoice that I was born,
5 When from the climbing terraces of corn
I watch the golden orioles of Thy morn.
What care I for the worlds desire and pride,
Who know the silver wings that gleam and glide,
The homing pigeons of Thine eventide?
10 What care I for the worlds loud weariness,
Who dream in twilight granaries Thou dost bless
With delicate sheaves of mellow silences?
Say, shall I heed dull presages of doom,
Or dread the rumoured loneliness and gloom,
15 The mute and mythic terror of the tomb?
For my glad heart is drunk and drenched with Thee,
O inmost wine of living ecstasy;
O intimate essence of eternity!
Sarojini Naidu
In Salutation to the Eternal Peace by Sarojini Naidu
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Published by Pearson Education Limited, Edinburgh Gate, Harlow, Essex, CM20 2JE.
www.pearsonschoolsandfecolleges.co.uk
For use with the Edexcel English Literature specification.
Copies of official specifications for all Edexcel qualifications may be found on the Edexcel website: www.edexcel.com
Pearson Education Limited 2013
Audio recorded by Pearson Education Limited
First published 2013
Acknowledgements
Cover images: Alamy Images: Colin Crisford; Getty Images: Jason Hosking; iStockphoto: Simon Alvinge,
Huseyin Tuncer.
The Thought Fox by Ted Hughes Ted Hughes was taken from The Hawk in the Rain, published by Faber & Faber,
2003; Digging by Seamus Heaney Seamus Heaney, was taken from New Selected Poems 1966-1987, published
by Faber & Faber, 2002; Colonel Fazackerley Butterworth-Toast by Charles Causley Charles Causley, from
the book: I Had A Little Cat published by Macmillan Childrens Books, 2009. Used by permission of David Higham
Associates; Everyone Sang by Siegfried Sassoon Siegfried Sassoon from Collected Poems 1908-1956 published
by Faber & Faber 1961, used by kind permission of the Estate of George Sassoon; Still I Rise, copyright 1978 by
Maya Angelou, from And Still I Rise by Maya Angelou. Used by permission of Random House Inc., USA and Little
Brown Book Group; The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost, Robert Frost, taken from Collected Poems published
by Random House and Henry Holt and Company; Variations on the Word Love by Margaret Atwood, used by
permission of the Author. Available in Selected Poems, 1966-1984, published by McClelland and Stewart, Canada,
Margaret Atwood 1990; City Lilacs by Helen Dunmore, taken from Glad Of These Times, used by permission of
Bloodaxe books Helen Dunmore, 2007; In Salutation to the Eternal Peace by Sarojini Naidu, taken from: Sarojini
Naidus Poetry: Melody Of Indianness, published by Sarup & Sons, Sarojini Naidu, 2003.
Every effort has been made to contact copyright holders of material reproduced in this book. Any omissions will be
rectified in subsequent printings if notice is given to the publishers.
The Thought-Fox Digging Colonel Fazackerley Butterworth-Toast Everyone Sang Still I Rise Sonnet 43 Hope is the thing with feathers First Love Annabel Lee The Road Not Taken Variations on the Word Love City Lilacs Last Lesson of the Afternoon At Castle Boterel In Salutation to the Eternal Peace
Audio - Thought-Fox: Audio - Digging: Audio - Thought-Fox 2: Audio - Thought-Fox 3: Audio - Thought-Fox 4: Audio - Thought-Fox 5: Audio - Thought-Fox 6: Audio - Thought-Fox 7: Audio - Thought-Fox 8: Audio - Thought-Fox 9: Audio - Thought-Fox 10: Audio - Thought-Fox 11: Audio - Thought-Fox 12: Audio - Thought-Fox 13: Audio - Thought-Fox 14: