Unseen poem preparation anthology

Edexcel GCSE

Unseen Poem Preparation AnthologyGCSE English and English Literature

A LWAY S L E A R N I NG

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

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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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

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:

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Unseen poem preparation anthology