Poems (English Lit Gcse)

Front 1

I 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,

Back 1

Ozymandias

Front 2

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:

Back 2

Ozymandias

Front 3

In every cry of every Man,

In every Infants cry of fear,

In every voice: in every ban,

The mind-forged manacles I hear:

Back 3

London

Front 4

But most thro' midnight streets I hear

How the youthful Harlots curse

Blasts the new-born Infants tear,

And blights with plagues the Marriage hearse.

Back 4

London

Front 5

The horizon's bound, a huge peak, black and huge,

As if with voluntary power instinct,

Upreared its head. I struck and struck again

And growing still in stature the grim shape

Back 5

Extract from The Prelude

Front 6

Of sea or sky, no colours of green fields;

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

Back 6

Extract from The Prelude

Front 7

Strangers like you that pictured countenance,

The depth and passion of its earnest glance,

But to myself they turned (since none puts by

The curtain I have drawn for you, but I)

Back 7

My Last Duchess

Front 8

Half a league, half a league,

Half a league onward,

All in the valley of Death

Rode the six hundred

Back 8

Charge of the Light Brigade

Front 9

Cannon to right of them,

Cannon to left of them,

Cannon in front of them

Volleyed and thundered

Back 9

Charge of the Light Brigade

Front 10

When can their glory fade?

O the wild charge they made!

All the world wondered.

Honour the charge they made!

Back 10

Charge of the Light Brigade

Front 11

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

Back 11

Exposure

Front 12

We are prepared: we build our houses squat,

Sink walls in rock and roof them with good slate.

The wizened earth had never troubled us

With hay, so as you can see, there are no stacks

Back 12

Storm on the Island

Front 13

You might think that the sea is company,

Exploding comfortably down on the cliffs

But no: when it begins, the flung spray hits

The very windows, spits like a tame cat

Turned savage. We just sit tight while wind dives

And strafes invisibly. Space is a salvo

Back 13

Storm on the Island

Front 14

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 -

Back 14

Bayonet Charge

Front 15

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

Back 15

Bayonet Charge

Front 16

On another occasion, we got sent out

to tackle looters raiding a bank.

And one of them legs it up the road,

probably armed, possibly not

Back 16

Remains

Front 17

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.

Then I’m home on leave. But I blink

Back 17

Remains

Front 18

Sellotape bandaged around my hand,

I rounded up as many white cat hairsas I could,

smoothed down your shirt'supturned collar,

steeled the softeningof my face.

Back 18

Poppies

Front 19

On reaching the top of the hill

I tracedthe inscriptions on the war memorial,

leaned against it like a wishbone.

The dove pulled freely against the sky,

Back 19

Poppies

Front 20

In his dark room he is finally alone

with spools of suffering set out in ordered rows.The only light is red and softly glows,

Back 20

War Photographer

Front 21

He has a job to do. Solutions slop in trays

beneath his hands, which did not tremble then

though seem to now. Rural England

Back 21

War Photographer

Front 22

Paper that lets the light

shine through, this

is what could alter things.

Paper thinned by age or touching,

Back 22

Tissue

Front 23

If buildings were paper, I might

feel their drift, see how easily

they fall away on a sigh, a shift

in the direction of the wind.

Back 23

Tissue

Front 24

An architect could use all this,

place layer over layer,

luminousscript over numbers over line,

and never wish to build again with brick

Back 24

Tissue

Front 25

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;

I comb its hair and love its shining eyes.

Back 25

The Emigree

Front 26

There once was a country… I left it as a child

but my memory of it is sunlight-clear

for it seems I never saw it in that November

which, I am told, comes to the mildest city.

Back 26

The Emigree

Front 27

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 Caribs and de Arawaks too

Back 27

Checking Out Me History

Front 28

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

Back 28

Checking Out Me History

Front 29

Her father embarked at sunrise

with a flask of water, a samurai sword

in the cockpit, a shaven head

full of powerful incantations

Back 29

Kamikaze

Front 30

but half way there, she thought,

recounting it later to her children,he must have looked far downat the little fishing boats

Back 30

Kamikaze