1. THE TYGER – W.

BLAKE
Tyger Tyger, burning bright, 
In the forests of the night; 
What immortal hand or eye, 
Could frame thy fearful symmetry? 

In what distant deeps or skies. 

Burnt the fire of thine eyes? 
On what wings dare he aspire? 
What the hand, dare seize the fire? 

And what shoulder, & what art, 

Could twist the sinews of thy heart? 
And when thy heart began to beat, 
What dread hand? & what dread feet? 

What the hammer? what the chain, 

In what furnace was thy brain? 
What the anvil? what dread grasp, 
Dare its deadly terrors clasp! 

When the stars threw down their spears 

And water'd heaven with their tears: 
Did he smile his work to see? 
Did he who made the Lamb make thee? 

Tyger Tyger burning bright, 

In the forests of the night: 
What immortal hand or eye, 
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?
 2. THE LAMB – W. BLAKE
Little Lamb who made thee 
         Dost thou know who made thee 
Gave thee life & bid thee feed. 
By the stream & o'er the mead; 
Gave thee clothing of delight, 
Softest clothing wooly bright; 
Gave thee such a tender voice, 
Making all the vales rejoice! 
         Little Lamb who made thee 
         Dost thou know who made thee 

         Little Lamb I'll tell thee, 

         Little Lamb I'll tell thee!
He is called by thy name, 
For he calls himself a Lamb: 
He is meek & he is mild, 
He became a little child: 
I a child & thou a lamb, 
We are called by his name. 
         Little Lamb God bless thee. 
         Little Lamb God bless thee.
 3. DAFFODILS – W. WORDSWORTH
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.

Continuous as the stars that shine

And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they

Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed—and gazed—but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie

In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

4. THE RIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER – S.T. COLERIDGE

Text
 5. IT IS A BEAUTEOUS EVENING – W. WORDSWORTH
It is a beauteous evening, calm and free, 
The holy time is quiet as a Nun 
Breathless with adoration; the broad sun 
Is sinking down in its tranquility; 
The gentleness of heaven broods o'er the Sea; 
Listen! the mighty Being is awake, 
And doth with his eternal motion make 
A sound like thunder—everlastingly. 
Dear child! dear Girl! that walkest with me here, 
If thou appear untouched by solemn thought, 
Thy nature is not therefore less divine: 
Thou liest in Abraham's bosom all the year; 
And worshipp'st at the Temple's inner shrine, 
God being with thee when we know it not. 

6. THE PRELUDE – W. WORDWORTH

Text

7. ODE TO THE WEST WIND – P.B. SHELLEY

Text

8. THE TRIUMPH OF LIFE – P.B. SHELLEY

Text

9. ODE ON A GRECIAN URN – J. KEATS

Text

10. THE BISHOP ORDERS HIS TOMB AT SAINT PRAXED’S CHURCH – R. BROWNING
Text

11. FRA LIPPO LIPPI – R. BROWNING

Text
12. GREAT EXPECTATIONS – CH. DICKENS

13. HEART OF DARKNESS – J. CONRAD

14. THE LOVE SONG OF J. ALFRED PRUFROCK – T.S. ELIOT

Text

15. THE WASTE LAND – T.S. ELIOT

Text

16. PRELUDES T.S. ELIOT

Text
 17. DULCE ET DECORUM EST – W. OWEN
Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs,
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots,
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of gas-shells dropping softly behind.

Gas! GAS! Quick, boys!—An ecstasy of fumbling

Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time,
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And flound’ring like a man in fire or lime.—
Dim through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams before my helpless sight,

He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams, you too could pace

Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,—
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.

18. A PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST AS A YOUNG MAN – J. JOYCE

19. WAITING FOR GODOT – S. BECKETT

 20. PUNISHMENT – S. HEANEY
I can feel the tug
of the halter at the nape
of her neck, the wind
on her naked front.
 
It blows her nipples
to amber beads,
it shakes the frail rigging
of her ribs.
 
I can see her drowned
body in the bog,
the weighing stone,
the floating rods and boughs.
 
Under which at first
she was a barked sapling
that is dug up
oak-bone, brain-firkin:
 
her shaved head
like a stubble of black corn,
her blindfold a soiled bandage,
her noose a ring
 
to store
the memories of love.
Little adulteress,
before they punished you
 
you were flaxen-haired,
undernourished, and your
tar-black face was beautiful.
My poor scapegoat,
 
I almost love you
but would have cast, I know,
the stones of silence.
I am the artful voyeuur
 
of your brain’s exposed
and darkened combs,
your muscles’ webbing
and all your numbered bones:
 
I who have stood dumb
when your betraying sisters,
cauled in tar,
wept by the railings,
 
who would connive
in civilized outrage
yet understand the exact
and tribal, intimate revenge.
 21. THE WINDHOVER – G.M. HOPKINS
To Christ our Lord
I caught this morning morning's minion, king-
    dom of daylight's dauphin, dapple-dawn-drawn Falcon, in his riding
    Of the rolling level underneath him steady air, and striding
High there, how he rung upon the rein of a wimpling wing
In his ecstasy! then off, off forth on swing,
    As a skate's heel sweeps smooth on a bow-bend: the hurl and gliding
    Rebuffed the big wind. My heart in hiding
Stirred for a bird, – the achieve of, the mastery of the thing!

Brute beauty and valour and act, oh, air, pride, plume, here
    Buckle! AND the fire that breaks from thee then, a billion
Times told lovelier, more dangerous, O my chevalier!
     
   No wonder of it: shéer plód makes plough down sillion
Shine, and blue-bleak embers, ah my dear,
    Fall, gall themselves, and gash gold-vermilion.
 22. THE KINGFISHER – T. HUGHES
The Kingfisher perches. He studies.

Escaped from the jeweller’s opium

X-rays the river’s toppling
Tangle of glooms.

Now he’s vanished—into vibrations.

A sudden electric wire, jarred rigid,
Snaps—with a blue flare.

He has left his needle buried in your ear.

Oafish oaks, kneeling, bend over

Dragging with their reflections
For the sunken stones. The Kingfisher
Erupts through the mirror, beak full of ingots,

And is away—cutting the one straight line

Of the raggle-taggle tumbledown river
With a diamond—

Leaves a rainbow splinter sticking in your eye.

Through him, God, whizzing in the sun,

Glimpses the angler.

Through him, God

Marries a pit
Of fishy mire.

And look! He’s

—gone again.
Spark, sapphire, refracted
From beyond water
Shivering the spine of the river.

23. THE MYSTERY OF THE CHARITY OF CHARLES PEGUY – G.HILL