Professional Documents
Culture Documents
School of Education
An Anthology of
British Poems
Table of Contents
ii
1. I wandered as a lonely cloud (Daffodils)
I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
1
2. Composed upon Westminster Bridge
Earth has not anything to show more fair:
Dull would he be of soul who could pass by
A sight so touching in its majesty;
This City now doth, like a garment, wear
The beauty of the morning; silent, bare,
Ships, towers, domes, theatres, and temples lie
Open unto the fields, and to the sky;
All bright and glittering in the smokeless air.
Never did the sun more beautifully steep
In his first splendor, valley, rock, or hill;
Ne'er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep!
The river glideth at his own sweet will:
Dear God! the very houses seem asleep;
And all that mighty heart is lying still!
by William Wordsworth
2
3. A sense of denial
Denial looks black, panelled, silver-edged
and gleaming. Car-washed in water
enough to quench a dying village’s thirst,
3
4. In the upper room
I frighten to shudder into the drum,
frighten fuh de rhythm riding m’body;
no way will I succumb,
let drum song shiver through m’ears
echo through me, mixing in m’hips.
Where the drums come from?
Not from dem sailors downstairs,
or d’hands of that innkeeper, or d’quayside,
outside. Is from m’inside, deep,
seeping from m’toes,
taking me home, to other feet pounding,
exalting in the beat.
Still I frighten, but I let my pelvis lean
into de drum. Where it gon take me?
I travel, I travel and d’drums keep on,
bringing sweat to d’side of m’neck.
by Dorothea Smartt
4
5. Stand on the highest pavement
Stand on the highest pavement of the stair–
Lean on a garden urn–
Weave, weave the sunlight in your hair–
Clasp your flowers to you with a pained surprise–
Fling them to the ground and turn
With a fugitive resentment in your eyes:
But weave, weave the sunlight in your hair.
5
6. On the sea
It keeps eternal whisperings around
Desolate shores, and with its mighty swell
Gluts twice ten thousand Caverns, till the spell
Of Hecate leaves them their old shadowy sound.
Often 'tis in such gentle temper found,
That scarcely will the very smallest shell
Be moved for days from where it sometime fell.
When last the winds of Heaven were unbound.
Oh, ye! who have your eyeballs vexed and tired,
Feast them upon the wideness of the Sea;
Oh ye! whose ears are dinned with uproar rude,
Or fed too much with cloying melody---
Sit ye near some old Cavern's Mouth and brood,
Until ye start, as if the sea nymphs quired!
by John Keats
6
7. Happy Insensibility
In a drear-nighted December,
Too happy, happy Tree,
Thy branches ne’er remember
Their green felicity:
The north cannot undo them
With a sleety whistle through them,
Nor frozen thawings glue them
From budding at the prime.
In a drear-nighted December,
Too happy, happy Brook,
Thy bubblings ne’er remember
Apollo’s summer look;
But with a sweet forgetting
They stay their crystal fretting,
Never, never petting
About the frozen time.
7
8. On fame
FAME, like a wayward girl, will still be coy
To those who woo her with too slavish knees,
But makes surrender to some thoughtless boy,
And dotes the more upon a heart at ease;
She is a Gipsey,─will not speak to those
Who have not learnt to be content without her;
A Jilt, whose ear was never whisper’d close,
Who thinks they scandal her who talk about her;
A very Gipsey is she, Nilus-born,
Sister-in-law to jealous Potiphar;
Ye love-sick Bards! repay her scorn for scorn;
Ye Artists lovelorn! madmen that ye are!
Make your best bow to her and bid adieu,
Then, if she likes it, she will follow you.
by John Keats
9. To solitude
O SOLITUDE! if I must with thee dwell,
Let it not be among the jumbled heap
Of murky buildings; climb with me the steep, --
Nature's observatory -- whence the dell,
Its flowery slopes, its river's crystal swell,
May seem a span; let me thy vigils keep
'Mongst boughs pavilion'd, where the deer's swift leap
Startles the wild bee from the foxglove bell.
But though I'll gladly trace these scenes with thee,
Yet the sweet converse of an innocent mind,
Whose words are images of thoughts refin'd,
Is my soul's pleasure; and it sure must be
Almost the highest bliss of human-kind,
When to thy haunts two kindred spirits flee.
by John Keats
8
10. Musée des Beaux Arts (1940)
About suffering they were never wrong,
The Old Masters: how well they understood
Its human position; how it takes place
While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking
dully along;
How, when the aged are reverently, passionately waiting
For the miraculous birth, there always must be
Children who did not specially want it to happen, skating
On a pond at the edge of the wood:
They never forgot
That even the dreadful martyrdom must run its course
Anyhow in a corner, some untidy spot
Where the dogs go on with their doggy life and the torturer’s horse
Scratches its innocent behind on a tree.
9
11. The harvest moon
The flame-red moon, the harvest moon,
Rolls along the hills, gently bouncing,
A vast balloon,
Till it takes off, and sinks upward
To lie on the bottom of the sky, like a gold doubloon.
The harvest moon has come,
Booming softly through heaven, like a bassoon.
And the earth replies all night, like a deep drum.
10
12. Wind
This house has been far out at sea all night,
The woods crashing through darkness, the booming hills,
Winds stampeding the fields under the window
Floundering black astride and blinding wet
11
13. Among the rocks
Oh, good gigantic smile o' the brown old earth,
This autumn morning! How he sets his bones
To bask i' the sun, and thrusts out knees and feet
For the ripple to run over in its mirth;
Listening the while, where on the heap of stones
The white breast of the sea-lark twitters sweet.
12
14. Remember
Remember me when I am gone away,
Gone far away into the silent land;
When you can no more hold me by the hand,
Nor I half turn to go yet turning stay.
Remember me when no more day by day
You tell me of our future that you planned:
Only remember me; you understand
It will be late to counsel then or pray.
Yet if you should forget me for a while
And afterwards remember, do not grieve:
For if the darkness and corruption leave
A vestige of the thoughts that once I had,
Better by far you should forget and smile
Than that you should remember and be sad.
by Christina Rossetti
15. Requiem
When I am dead, my dearest,
Sing no sad songs for me;
Plant thou no roses at my head,
Nor shady cypress tree:
Be the green grass above me
With showers and dewdrops wet;
And if thou wilt, remember,
And if thou wilt, forget.
13
16. Originally (1990)
We came from our own country in a red room
which fell through the fields, our mother singing
our father’s name to the turn of the wheels.
My brothers cried, one of them bawling, Home,
Home, as the miles rushed back to the city,
the street, the house, the vacant rooms
where we didn’t live any more. I stared
at the eyes of a blind toy, holding its paw.
14
17. The oldest girl in the world
Children, I remember how I could hear
with my soft young ears
the tiny sounds of the air-
tinkles and chimes
like miniscule bells
ringing continually there;
clinks and chinks
like glasses of sparky gooseberry wine,
jolly and glinting and raised in the air.
Yes, I could hear like a bat! And how!
Can't hear a sniff of it now.
15
The showbizzy gasp of the wind.
Yes, I could smell like a copper's dog. Bow-wow!
Can't smell a sniff of it now.
Can't see a
Can't hear a
Can't taste a
Can't smell a
Can't feel a bit of it whiff of it niff of it
Can't get a sniff of it now.
by Carol Ann Duffy
16
18. The Light Gatherer
When you were small, your cupped palms
each held a candleworth under the skin,
enough light to begin,
17
19. The force that through the green fuse drives the flower (1934)
The force that through the green fuse drives the flower
Drives my green age; that blasts the roots of trees
Is my destroyer.
And I am dumb to tell the crooked rose
My youth is bent by the same wintry fever.
18
20. Dusting the phone (1993)
I am spending my time imagining the worst that could happen.
I know this is not a good idea, and that being in love, I could be
spending my time going over the best that has been happening.
19
21. Late love
How they strut about, people in love,
how tall they grow, pleased with themselves,
their hair, glossy, their skin shining.
They don't remember who they have been.
20
22. Sound of sleat
I always looked out at the world,
And wondered if the world looked back at me,
Standing on the edge of something,
On my face- the wind from the cold sea.
21
23. Sonnets from the Portuguese XXIV (1850)
LET the world’s sharpness, like a clasping knife,
Shut in upon itself and do no harm
In this close hand of Love, now soft and warm,
And let us hear no sound of human strife
After the click of the shutting. Life to life─
I lean upon thee, Dear, without alarm,
And feel as safe as guarded by a charm
Against the stab of worldlings, who if rife
Are weak to injure. Very whitely still
The lilies of our lives may reassure
Their blossoms from their roots, accessible
Alone to heavenly dews that drop not fewer,
Growing straight, out of man’s reach, on the hill.
God only, who made us rich, can make us poor.
by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
22
25. Diving
The moment I tire
of difficult sand-grains
and giddy pebbles,
I roll with the punch
of a shrivelling wave
and am cosmonaut
out past the fringe
of a basalt ledge
in a moony sea-hall
spun beyond blue.
Faint but definite
heat of the universe
flutters my skin;
quick fish apply
as something to love,
what with their heads
of gong-dented gold;
plankton I push
23
26. The patchwork bonnett
Across the room my silent love I throw,
Where you sit sewing in bed by candlelight,
Your young stern profile and industrious fingers
Displayed against the blind in a shadow-show,
To Dinda's grave delight.
24
27. The Spoilsport
My familiar ghost again
Comes to see what he can see,
Critic, son of Conscious Brain,
Spying on our privacy.
25
28. Marigolds
With a fork drive Nature out,
She will ever yet return;
Hedge the flowerbed all about,
Pull or stab or cut or burn,
She will ever yet return.
26
29. Call, The
Out of the nothingness of sleep,
The slow dreams of Eternity,
There was a thunder on the deep:
I came, because you called to me.
27
30. In a garden
When the gardener has gone this garden
Looks wistful and seems waiting an event.
It is so spruce, a metaphor of Eden
And even more so since the gardener went,
31. Absence
I visited the place where we last met.
Nothing was changed, the gardens were well-tended,
The fountains sprayed their usual steady jet;
There was no sign that anything had ended
And nothing to instruct me to forget.
28
32. Friday
We nailed the hands long ago,
Wove the thorns, took up the scourge and shouted
For excitement's sake, we stood at the dusty edge
Of the pebbled path and watched the extreme of pain.
29
33. On the syllabus today: Blue skies
Today I awake sizzling with hope. I'm determined
to teach something that can't be undermined
30
34. Disarmed
He is still those boys at night when his dreams
are laced with genocide. When day breaks
and the armless beggars wander down Big Waterloo Street
he vaguely recalls something distant and obscene.
Disarmed and dangerous, the child waits for democracy to spring a leak.
31
35. The river
In my first sleep
I came to the river
And looked down
Through the clear water -
Only in dream
Water so pure,
Laced and undulant
Lines of flow
On its rocky bed
Water of life
Streaming forever.
In my second dream
Pure I was and free
32
By the rapid stream,
My crystal house the sky,
The pure crystalline sky.
36. Lament
Where are those dazzling hills touched by the sun,
Those crags in childhood that I used to climb?
Hidden, hidden under mist is yonder mountain,
Hidden is the heart.
33
37. Confessions
Wanting to know all
I overlooked each particle
Containing the whole
Unknowable.
Being what I am
What could I do but wrong?
Yet love can bring
To heart healing
To chaos meaning.
by Kathleen Raine
34
38. The chimney sweeper (1789)
When my mother died I was very young,
And my father sold me while yet my tongue
Could scarcely cry ” ‘weep! ‘weep! ‘weep! ‘weep!”
So your chimneys I sweep and in soot I sleep.
35
39. If
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or, being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise;
36
40. When earth’s last picture is painted
When Earth’s last picture is painted
And the tubes are twisted and dried
When the oldest colors have faded
And the youngest critic has died
We shall rest, and faith, we shall need it
Lie down for an aeon or two
‘Till the Master of all good workmen
Shall put us to work anew
37
41. The old stoic
Riches I hold in light esteem,
And Love I laugh to scorn;
And lust of fame was but a dream
That vanish’d with the morn:
38
42. Summoned by bells
Walking from school is a consummate art:
Which route to follow to avoid the gangs,
Which paths to find that lead, circuitous,
To leafy squirrel haunts and plopping ponds,
For dreams of Archibald and Tiger Tim;
Which hiding place is safe, and when it is;
What time to leave to dodge the enemy.
I only once was trapped. I knew the trap -
I heard it in their tones: “Walk back with us.”
I knew they weren’t my friends; but that soft voice
Wheedled me from my route to cold Swain’s Lane.
There in a holly bush they threw me down,
Pulled off my shorts, and laughed and ran away;
And, as I struggled up, I saw grey brick,
The cemetery railings and the tomb.
by John Betjeman
39
43. Dover beach (1867)
The sea is calm tonight.
The tide is full, the moon lies fair
Upon the straits; on the French coast the light
Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand,
Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay.
Come to the window, sweet is the night-air!
Only, from the long line of spray
Where the sea meets the moon-blanched land,
Listen! you hear the grating roar
Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling,
At their return, up the high strand,
Begin, and cease, and then again begin,
With tremulous cadence slow, and bring
The eternal note of sadness in.
40
44. The wind
I saw you toss the kites on high
And blow the birds about the sky;
And all around I heard you pass,
Like ladies’ skirts across the grass–
O wind, a-blowing all day long,
O wind, that sings so loud a song!
41
45. A farewell
Flow down, cold rivulet, to the sea,
Thy tribute wave deliver:
No more by thee my steps shall be,
For ever and for ever.
42
46. The tenor man
Pottering around the stage,
a hyperactive ancient in his own backyard -
independent of the band it seems.
and blows,
a tumbling counterpoint,
scales soaring from his horn.
43
47. Lingering by the doorway of the woods
I was picking blackberries when I thought of the strange girl at the mental hospital.
Beautiful she was – quietly beautiful. Yes – and apparently nothing the matter with
her – except that she was scared to go outside, and scared to go indoors. And so she just sat there
in a chair by the entrance door – she was there when I went in with the
library trolley : she was there when I came out. But that was thirty years ago. Odd
44
48. Admired
Strange how deep under her skin he is.
She only knows him through his distant admiration
across darkened dance-floors and concert halls.
45
49. Where shall we go?
Waiting for her in the usual bar
He finds she's late again.
Impatience frets at him,
But not the fearful, half-sweet pain he knew
So long ago.
46
50. They did not expect this
They did not expect this. Being neither wise nor brave
And wearing only the beauty of youth's season
They took the first turning quite unquestioningly
And walked quickly without looking back even once.
Though the blood chilled, the endearing word burnt the tongue.
There were no parks or gardens or public houses:
Midnight settled and the rain paused leaving the city
Enormous and still like a great sleeping seal.
47
51. Symptoms
Although you have given me a stomach upset,
Weak knees, a lurching heart, a fuzzy brain,
A high-pitched laugh, a monumental phone bill,
A feeling of unworthiness, sharp pain
When you are somewhere else, a guilty conscience,
A longing, and a dread of what’s in store,
A pulse rate for the Guinness Book of Records -
Life now is better than it was before.
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52. Your dad did what?
Where they have been, if they have been away,
or what they've done at home, if they have not -
you make them write about the holiday.
You count their words (you who can count and spell);
all the assignments are complete bar one
No change.
My Dad did.
What? What did his Dad?
49
53. Independence…
Listen…
thud-thud
Can you hear it?
thud-thud
It’s the beat of my heart.
thud-thud
I shall live on.
thud-thud
My tortured soul
is not willing to rest.
thud-thud-thud
This war has just begun.
I’ve learned how to laugh
in the face of evil now.
thud-thud-thud
You can no longer hurt me,
as long as I follow
the beat of my heart.
thud-thud-thud
Another day beckons.
Another day of torment.
thud-thud
No!
Not this day
or
any other day.
thud-thud
You may have won
the battles,
but today
I declare Victory.
thud-thud
Listen…
thud-thud
Do you hear that?
thud-thud
It’s the beat of my heart.
thud-thud
And I live on.
thud-thud
Thud!
by Claire Nixon
50
References
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