SPM ENGLISH LITERATURE

POEM COMPILATION
[2022-23]

 The Passionate Shepherd To His Love

Christopher Marlowe

 Daffodils
William Wordsworth

 To Autumn
John Keats

 Address To A Child During A Boisterous Winter Evening

Dorothy Wordsworth

 The Tyger
William Blake

 London
William Blake

 Half-Term
Ursula Askham Fanthorpe

 The Little Black Boy

William Blake

 If -
Rudyard Kipling

 Miners

Wilfred Owen
 The Passionate Shepherd to His Love

Come live with me and be my love,

And we will all the pleasures prove,
That Valleys, groves, hills, and fields,
Woods, or steepy mountain yields.

And we will sit upon the Rocks,

Seeing the Shepherds feed their flocks,
By shallow Rivers to whose falls
Melodious birds sing Madrigals.

And I will make thee beds of Roses

And a thousand fragrant posies,
A cap of flowers, and a kirtle
Embroidered all with leaves of Myrtle;

A gown made of the finest wool

Which from our pretty Lambs we pull;
Fair lined slippers for the cold,
With buckles of the purest gold;

A belt of straw and Ivy buds,

With Coral clasps and Amber studs:
And if these pleasures may thee move,
Come live with me, and be my love.

The Shepherds’ Swains shall dance and sing

For thy delight each May-morning:
If these delights thy mind may move,
Then live with me, and be my love.

Christopher Marlowe - 1564-1593

‘Come live with me’ is an old line in lyric poetry stretching from ancient Rome
to Heaven 17, but perhaps the poet who gave this sentiment the definitive treatment
was Christopher Marlowe (1564-93). In ‘The Passionate Shepherd to His Love’,
Marlowe’s speaker sings the praises of a life in the countryside (as opposed to the
town or city), in an attempt to win round his would-be beloved, whom he addresses.

To paraphrase ‘The Passionate Shepherd to His Love’:

Come live with me and be my love,

And we will all the pleasures prove,
That Valleys, groves, hills, and fields,
Woods, or steepy mountain yields.

‘Come live with me and be my lover, and we will make the most of all the pleasures
that the valleys, fields, woods, and mountains afford.’

And we will sit upon the Rocks,

Seeing the Shepherds feed their flocks,
By shallow Rivers to whose falls
Melodious birds sing Madrigals.

‘We’ll sit on the rocks and watch the shepherds feeding their flocks of sheep, and
we’ll hear the birds singing their madrigals [elaborate songs sung by a group of
performers] by the waterfalls.’

And I will make thee beds of Roses

And a thousand fragrant posies,
A cap of flowers, and a kirtle
Embroidered all with leaves of Myrtle;

‘I’ll fashion you a bed out of the roses, and use the roses to make you a thousand
sweet-smelling bundles of roses, as well as a cap made out of flowers to wear, and a
kirtle [ladies’ gown] embroidered with myrtle leaves [an evergreen shrub].’

A gown made of the finest wool

Which from our pretty Lambs we pull;
Fair lined slippers for the cold,
With buckles of the purest gold;

‘As I’m a shepherd, I’ll have plenty of lambs, and can make you a gown from their
wool; I can also use their wool to make you slippers for when it’s cold, slippers with
gold buckles.’
 A belt of straw and Ivy buds,
With Coral clasps and Amber studs:
And if these pleasures may thee move,
Come live with me, and be my love.

‘You can have a belt fashioned from straw and ivy buds, with clasps made of coral
and studs of amber. If any of this appeals to you, come and live with me in this
idyllic pastoral world and be my lover.’

The Shepherds’ Swains shall dance and sing

For thy delight each May-morning:
If these delights thy mind may move,
Then live with me, and be my love.

‘The young lovers of the shepherds will dance and sing for your enjoyment every
Mayday [when we get the Maypole out]; again, if this appeals to you, live with me
and be my lover.’

The countryside, as the poem’s speaker presents it, is abundant and pretty, full of
fine flowers, from which he will create ‘beds of Roses’ and sweet posies. The
countryside also provides soft lamb’s wool, from which the lady’s gown and slippers
can be fashioned. Who needs the town when you have everything you need in the
country? Jewellery, too, can be made from coral and amber found nearby.

This, then, is a poem firmly in the pastoral tradition, and should be read and
analysed as such. Pastoral poetry isn’t just writing about rural life and landscapes:
it idealises the countryside, usually through the figure of the shepherd and beautiful,
enticing images of the greenery and abundance of the countryside. And this is
exactly what Marlowe is doing in ‘The Passionate Shepherd to His Love’: the poem
is almost an advert for life in the countryside as much as it is an attempt to seduce
the young woman to up sticks and move to the country with the poet.

In terms of its form and metre: the poem is fairly regularly metrical, written in
iambic tetrameter rhyming couplets, arranged as quatrains rhyming aabb. The iambic
metre gives us the close approximation to human speech: although the poem is
formal and artificial (Marlowe is taking on the idealised figure of the shepherd; in
reality he was a playwright, poet, and possibly a spy, working in London), Marlowe
writes in a fairly direct and down-to-earth way to his would-be lover. The tetrameter
metre reminds us of song (giving us shorter lines than pentameter, which was used in
Marlowe’s verse drama), which is also appropriate given the poem’s focus on
madrigals, dances, and birdsong.
Address To A Child During A Boisterous Winter Evening

What way does the wind come? What way does he go?
He rides over the water, and over the snow,
Through wood, and through vale; and o’er rocky height,
Which the goat cannot climb, takes his sounding flight;
He tosses about in every bare tree,
As, if you look up, you plainly may see;
But how he will come, and whither he goes,
There’s never a scholar in England knows.

He will suddenly stop in a cunning nook,

And ring a sharp ‘larum; but, if you should look,
There’s nothing to see but a cushion of snow,
Round as a pillow, and whiter than milk,
And softer than if it were covered with silk.
Sometimes he’ll hide in the cave of a rock,
Then whistle as shrill as a buzzard cock;
Yet seek him – and what shall you find in his place?
Nothing but silence and empty space;
Save, in a corner, a heap of dry leaves,
That he’s left, for a bed, to beggars or thieves!

As soon as ’tis daylight tomorrow, with me

You shall go to the orchard, and then you will see
That he has been there, and made a great rout,
And cracked the branches, and strewn them about:
Heaven grant that he spare but that one upright twig
That looked up at the sky so proud and big
All last summer, as well you know,
Studded with apples, a beautiful show!
 Hark! over the roof he makes a pause,
And growls as if he would fix his claws
Right in the slates, and with a huge rattle
Drive them down, like men in a battle.
But let him range round; he does us no harm,
We buildup the fire, we’re snug and warm;
Untouched by his breath, see the candle shines bright,
And burns with a clear and steady light.
Books have we to read, but that half-stifled knell,
Alas! ’tis the sound of the eight o’clock bell.

Come, now we’ll to bed! and when we are there

He may work his own will, and what shall we care?
He may knock at the door – we’ll not let him in;
May drive at the windows – we’ll laugh at his din;
Let him seek his own home wherever it be;
Here’s a cozie warm house for Edward and me.

Dorothy Wordsworth
 Analysis

What way does the wind come? What way does he go?
He rides over the water, and over the snow,
Through wood, and through vale; and o’er rocky height,
Which the goat cannot climb, takes his sounding flight;
He tosses about in every bare tree,
As, if you look up, you plainly may see;
But how he will come, and whither he goes,
There’s never a scholar in England knows.

The speaker questions the direction of the wind, that is it’s origin and it’s
destination. Here, the wind is personified to be able to ‘ride over the water, and
over the snow,/ Through wood, and through vale; and o’er rocky height‘. As
such, it is implied that the wind is very agile, perhaps more than that of a mountain
goat that it is compared against. However, this playful being (‘He tosses about in
every bare tree‘) is unpredictable, as ‘how he will come, and whither he goes,/
There’s never a scholar in England knows‘.

He will suddenly stop in a cunning nook,

And ring a sharp ‘larum; but, if you should look,
There’s nothing to see but a cushion of snow,
Round as a pillow, and whiter than milk,
And softer than if it were covered with silk.
Sometimes he’ll hide in the cave of a rock,
Then whistle as shrill as a buzzard cock;
Yet seek him – and what shall you find in his place?
Nothing but silence and empty space;
Save, in a corner, a heap of dry leaves,
That he’s left, for a bed, to beggars or thieves!

The wind is now slowly getting stronger, able to ‘ring a sharp ‘larum‘, loud and
surprising. However, when one looks for him, they are deceived by a seemingly
undisturbed cushion of snow. Wind is depicted as a mischievous rascal that wishes
to play games with those around him, constantly taunting those around him with a
‘whistle as shrill as the buzzard cock‘, only to leave ‘nothing but silence and
empty space‘. Though invisible, it still leaves behind it’s work, shown here as ‘a
heap of dry leaves‘ left ‘for a bed, to beggars or thieves!‘
 As soon as ’tis daylight tomorrow, with me
You shall go to the orchard, and then you will see
That he has been there, and made a great rout,
And cracked the branches, and strewn them about:
Heaven grant that he spare but that one upright twig
That looked up at the sky so proud and big
All last summer, as well you know,
Studded with apples, a beautiful show!

The next morning, the speaker and his/her companion will visit the orchard and they
will see that wind has also left their mark there (‘made a great rout‘). Branches
have been ‘cracked‘ and ‘strewn about‘, leaving behind only a twig that had once
been part of the apple tree. Here, wind is mischievous and destructive, wreaking
havoc amongst the apple trees in the orchard.

Hark! over the roof he makes a pause,

And growls as if he would fix his claws
Right in the slates, and with a huge rattle
Drive them down, like men in a battle.
But let him range round; he does us no harm,
We buildup the fire, we’re snug and warm;
Untouched by his breath, see the candle shines bright,
And burns with a clear and steady light.
Books have we to read, but that half-stifled knell,
Alas! ’tis the sound of the eight o’clock bell.

The wind continues to cause havoc outside the house, just like a fierce beast that
‘growls‘ and would ‘fix his claws right in the slates‘, trying to bring them down
with a huge rattle. The speaker asks that we do no pay attention to him, instead
building up a fire so that ‘we’re snug and warm‘; they would read books by the
candlelight before the eight o’clock bell rings. After all, the wind could cause no
harm while they were indoors.

Come, now we’ll to bed! and when we are there

He may work his own will, and what shall we care?
He may knock at the door – we’ll not let him in;
May drive at the windows – we’ll laugh at his din;
Let him seek his own home wherever it be;
Here’s a cozie warm house for Edward and me.

The speaker insists that they go to bed, knowing that the wind may do whatever it
wishes, unable to affect the family inside. The wind ‘may knock at the door – we’ll
not let him in; May drive at the windows – we’ll laugh at his din‘. That is all the
wind can do, so they should let him be, safe in the fact that they are safe and
comfortable, both the speaker and Edward himself.

Themes

A. The Power of Nature

Nature, as God’s creation, is powerful and admirable while not having

clear motivations. Wind as a part of nature has been personified
extensively and it’s power is demonstrated throughout the poem. First, the
wind is extremely agile as it is able to navigate many types of terrain with
relative ease, ‘o’er rocky height, which the goat cannot climb‘. It is
implied that it is relatively difficult even for one of the most versatile of
creatures, hence emphasizing its agility here. The wind also travels
wherever he wishes and is very unpredictable, to the point where ‘there’s
never a scholar in England knows‘. As such a powerful and invisible
force, wind thus becomes very cunning and mischievous. As an example,
wind would ‘ring a sharp ‘larum, but if you should look, there’s
nothing to see but a cushion of snow‘. It is also very destructive, as
witnessed in the orchard itself, alluded as a beast that is ferocious and
dangerous (‘growls‘, ‘fix his claws right in the slates‘). Wind may seem
ferocious but God never intended it to be; instead, humans are meant to
appreciate it both for it’s destructive capabilities and it’s human-like
qualities.

B. Childhood

As much as this poem is a song about nature, it is also an allusion to

childhood and its adventures. Every element of this poem can be related
to a child who is mischievous and destructive and treats the natural world
as his personal playground. Such a child would be mischievous and
cunning, especially in the presence of adults as demonstrated in stanza 2;
he would also take joy in destruction. whereby the sound of cracking
 induces pure ecstasy (stanza 3); he would also be incredibly fit and
curious about the world itself, exploring and unafraid of nature’s obstacles
(stanza 1); the child is free to play and do as he wishes, comfortable in
any home or situation that he is in due to his youth and fearlessness (last
stanza). As a whole, this is a celebration of youth, telling the reader about
the wonders of childhood and perhaps evoking nostalgia or appreciation
for it.

Literary Elements

 Personification
 Simile
 Onomatopoeia
 Contrast – the dangerous outdoors versus the calm, warm and safe indoors
(stanza 4)
 Imagery

Dorothy Wordsworth was a close sibling of William Wordsworth. Dorothy often

went on walks in nature with him and stayed with him after his marriage. William
voluntarily became her caretaker until her death. She was primarily known for her
diary writings although they were not posthumously published. This diary became
an inspiration for many of William’s works on nature, such as Daffodils.
 Half-Term

Always autumn, in my memory.

Butter ringing the drilled teashop crumpets;
Handmade chocolates, rich enough to choke you,
Brought in special smooth paper from Town.

(Back at school, the square tall piles

Of bread, featureless red jam in basins,
Grace, a shuffle of chairs. the separate table
For the visiting lacrosse team.)

Long awkward afternoons in hotel lounges,

Islanded in swollen armchairs, eyeing
Aristocratic horses in irrelevant magazines.
Should I be talking to Them?

(Back at school the raptly selfish

Snatch at self: the clashing
Determined duets in cold practising-
Room, the passionate solitary knitting.)

Inadequacies of presentation, perceived

By parents’ temporary friends; hair, manners,
Clothes, have failed to adjust.
I don’t know the rules of snooker.

(Back at school, the stiff reliable

Awkwardness of work. History test
On Monday morning. Deponent verbs.
I have never been good at maths.)

Saying goodbye. There are tears

And hugs, relief, regret. They,
Like me, return to a patterned life
Whose rules are easy. Unworthily
 I shall miss chocolate, crumpets,
Comfort, but not the love I only
Sense as they go, waving to the end,
Vague in the streetlamps of November.

(Back at school the bullies

Tyrants and lunatics are waiting.
I can deal with them.)

Ursula Askham Fanthorpe

 Analysis

Half-Term discusses two of the speaker’s periods in life, namely the speaker’s

school life and their adult, working life. It draws comparisons between the two and
points out the similarities between the two in the form of memories and flashbacks
by use of repetition of ‘Back at school‘ and the use of brackets. The contrast are
seen clearly through comparisons of the vibrant present and a bleaker past. For
example, stanza 1 and stanza 2 compare the present and the speaker’s school life
through the mentions of ‘teashop crumpets‘, ‘handmade chocolates, rich enough
to choke you‘ that are ‘brought in special smooth paper from Town‘; Stanza 2
instead mentions plain bread, and ‘featureless red jam in basins‘, showing a much
more depressing school life as such sweets are often correlated with a happy
atmosphere whereas the food items in stanza 2 are much bleaker and less vibrant in
general. The speaker implies that their school life was generally more lonely, but
that some of this loneliness or isolation followed the speaker into adulthood. In
stanza 3, the speaker felt out of place with others, emphasized by the bolded ‘Should
I be talking to Them?‘ ‘Them‘ is also capitalized so as to emphasize others were
like another breed or level above the speaker. Stanza 4 also emphasizes this isolation
with terms like ‘cold‘, ‘snatch at self‘ and ‘solitary‘.

On the bright side of things, adult life has given the speaker friends as well but
weirdly the poem focuses on their separation instead, as shown in stanza 7. Perhaps
this serves to highlight the bitter-sweetness of adult life and demonstrate that the
speaker cannot truly escape from these negative things that were once widespread
during their school days. A ‘patterned life‘ is another example of something that
cannot be escaped from, whereby the freedom so coveted in adulthood is close to
non-existent. The speaker also states that they will miss the pleasures of adult life,
all except the love that they received. This love will not be missed because the
speaker is not losing it in the first place, instead staying by their side even until the
harsh month of November. However. the poem doesn’t end here, instead reflecting
on another day in school, where the ‘bullies, tyrants and lunatics‘ wait to punish
them. This outlook doesn’t end on a negative note, instead saying that the speaker
‘can deal with them.‘ This is a sharp contrast to the previous stanzas that recollect
school life, whereby there is a more positive note that alleviates the rest of the
speaker’s otherwise horrible school life, showing a small glimmer of hope and self-
confidence that is carried forward into the speaker’s adult life.

Whether this is a message of encouragement or a subtle warning about the ups and
downs of life, it would be completely up to the interpretation of the reader. The use
of imagery and subtle references reminds the reader to be either vigilant or cherish
every stage of life, facing the obstacles in life with determination just like how the
speaker did it even in such a bleak school environment.
Literary Elements

i. Enjambment – Brings forward an element of uncertainty and anxiety for the

speaker
ii. Hypo-taxis
iii. Sibilance
 The Little Black Boy

My mother bore me in the southern wild,

And I am black, but O! my soul is white;
White as an angel is the English child:
But I am black as if bereav’d of light.

My mother taught me underneath a tree

And sitting down before the heat of day,
She took me on her lap and kissed me,
And pointing to the east began to say.

Look on the rising sun: there God does live

And gives his light, and gives his heat away.
And flowers and trees and beasts and men receive
Comfort in morning joy in the noonday.

And we are put on earth a little space,

That we may learn to bear the beams of love,
And these black bodies and this sun-burnt face
Is but a cloud, and like a shady grove.

For when our souls have learn’d the heat to bear

The cloud will vanish; we shall hear his voice.
Saying: come out from the grove my love & care,
And round my golden tent like lambs rejoice.

Thus did my mother say and kissed me,

And thus I say to little English boy.
When I from black and he from white cloud free,
And round the tent of God like lambs we joy:

I’ll shade him from the heat till he can bear,

To lean in joy upon our father’s knee.
And then I’ll stand and stroke his silver hair,
And be like him and he will then love me.
William Blake
 In summary, ‘The Little Black Boy’ is spoken by the African boy mentioned
in the poem’s title. This ‘little black boy’ acknowledges that his skin is black
whereas a white English child’s is white, but the black boy’s soul is white too:
i.e., as spotless and pure as a white boy’s. The little black boy goes on to tell us
about what his mother taught him underneath a tree: instructing her son to look on
the rising sun in the east, she told him to think of the sun as a sign from God that he
represents comfort. There follows an extended metaphor of ‘God = sun’, which
William Blake uses ingeniously, linking it to the dark skin of the little black boy
(which has been ‘sunburnt’ by God’s ‘beams of love’), and suggesting that African
children find it harder to bear the ‘heat’ or strain of living, because they have it so
much harder than white children. (Obviously this doesn’t bear too close scrutiny or
analysis: black pigmentation in human skin evolved to make it easier to bear the heat
of the sun. But figuratively, the image works.) The little black boy’s mother then
tells him that, after death, the ‘cloud’ masking God (the sun) from our vision will be
cleared away, and like frolicking lambs these children will be in Heaven, around
God. Or, to borrow a line from the Bible, now they see through a glass, darkly; but
after death, the little black boy will see God face-to-face.

Blake then plays on the black/white binary some more, developing the ‘cloud’ into
two kinds: the black cloud (implying storms) and the white cloud (more suggestive
of pleasant weather). The little black boy tells a little white boy that when they
escape the mortal world and join God in Heaven, all will be well, and the little black
boy will shade his white friend from the heat of God’s love, until the white child can
bear it. The little black boy will then stroke the white child’s hair, and he will be like
the white, so the white boy will love him.

It’s clearly important to bear in mind the context of ‘The Little Black Boy’. Slavery
was still practised throughout the British Empire in 1789, and obviously the
Transatlantic Slave Trade was still going, involving the uprooting and forced
enslavement of millions of African people, who were then transported to the
Americas and made to work for their white owners. Blake, a tireless critic of
injustice and inequality, here stands up for the voiceless, much as he did in his other
poems ‘The Chimney-Sweeper’ and ‘Infant Sorrow’ (in the latter case, the child is
quite literally voiceless, in being an infant: from the Latin meaning ‘unable to
speak).

One of the justifications for slavery, of course, was the notion that black people were
inferior to white people, and this was often bolstered by Biblical ‘support’: black
people were cursed, ‘sons of Ham’, and so on. The idea that Christianity was used to
justify the subjugation of anyone not fortunate enough to have been born white is
one of the pernicious ideologies Blake’s poem is seeking to question. If suffering
brings one closer to God, then the little black boy is arguably more godly than his
white peers. And yet this, too, can be a dangerous logic to follow, since in itself it
can be viewed as a justification for the existing ideology (in other words, the
suffering of black children is all right because it will be ‘better’ for them in the long
run, in helping them to win their spot in Heaven). By exploring this vexed issue
through the voice of an innocent little black boy (this poem is from Songs of
Innocence, after all), Blake sidesteps any such judgements, instead exposing the
issues and leaving the reader to ponder whether it is just that black children should
suffer under slavery. In the last analysis, Blake’s poem is not as straightforward as it
first seems: something we see in many of his most popular poems.
 Miners

There was a whispering in my hearth,

A sigh of the coal.
Grown wistful of a former earth
It might recall.

I listened for a tale of leaves

And smothered ferns,
Frond-forests; and the low, sly lives
Before the fawns.

My fire might show steam-phantoms simmer

From Time's old cauldron,
Before the birds made nests in summer,
Or men had children.

But the coals were murmuring of their mine,

And moans down there
Of boys that slept wry sleep, and men
Writhing for air.

And I saw white bones in the cinder-shard,

Bones without number.
For many hearts with coal are charred,
And few remember.

I thought of all that worked dark pits

Of war, and died
Digging the rock where Death reputes
Peace lies indeed.

Comforted years will sit soft-chaired

In rooms of amber;
The years will stretch their hands, well-cheered
By our lifes' ember.
 The centuries will burn rich loads
With which we groaned,
Whose warmth shall lull their dreaming lids,
While songs are crooned.
But they will not dream of us poor lads
Left in the ground.

Wilfred Owen
Imagery in Miners

Metaphor
Throughout Miners Owen uses the image of being underground. This was
one of the horrors of war he had himself experienced in 1917 and his
discomfort surfaces in many of his poems. Owen’s early interest in geology
gave him the picture of the coal being formed over millennia from prehistoric
leaves and ferns. He uses the image as a metaphor for the way in which the
dead of the war provide warm and security for the future when they, like the
plants which formed the coal, are ‘left in the ground’ l.34.

Personification
The personification of the coal is continued with the idea that the ancient
forests from which the coal was created have a ‘tale of leaves’ to tell.
However Owen realises that the coals are not being nostalgic for the past,
rather their ‘murmuring’ is unrest about ‘their mines’ l.13 where miners
‘moan’ l.14.

In lines 23 and 24 Owen personifies Death and Peace, with Death believing
that Peace will emerge from ‘the dark pits of war’. Owen puns on the two
meanings of ‘lies’: Peace does not lie (rest) in the rock of war where the men
dig, it lies (deceives) to the troops.

Time is also given the attributes of a person, who warms his hands on the
burnt sacrifice of the men l.27-8 and will carry on burning up ‘loads’ of such
precious ‘fossil fuel’ l.29.

Symbolism in Miners
Both the miners and the soldiers symbolise sacrifice. The mines and the dark
pits of war also represent Owen’s ongoing dreams of hell. Owen’s and
Time’s fires, fed by the coal miners who risk their lives, are examples of
the home fires which a popular song of the time exhorted those on the Home
front to ‘keep burning’ while the boys on the Western front ‘dream of home.’

Investigating imagery and symbolism in Miners

 Owen had repeated dreams about being underground. He was familiar

with the idea of hell being a place of torture and this can be seen in
many poems. Compare Miners to The Sentry and Strange Meeting
Themes in Miners
In Miners Owen visits many of the key themes he explores in other poems.
The concept of the sacrifice of the lives of men and boys to ensure the
unacknowledged safety and comfort of those at home is particularly to the
forefront. Pain and suffering, dying and death are all explicit. Owen pays
great attention to the details of the insensitivities of those on the home front
who benefit from the war. They are warmed by the soldiers’ sacrifice in the
same way as they are warmed by the coal for which the miners died. They
will remember neither.

Investigating themes in Miners

 Owen began Miners as a poem about a mining disaster, yet the

resulting theme is of war. What ideas are common to both tragedies?
 Does Owen concentrate on the war dead at the expense of the dead
miners, as some critics have suggested?
 Do you agree that this poem is out of place in a selection of anti-war
poems, which is the view of some critics?

A figure of speech where a non-person, for example an animal, the weather,

or some inanimate object, is described as if it were a person, being given
human qualities.
To represent a thing or idea by something else through an association of
ideas.
A sentimental symbol of home.
This term referred to those remaining in Britain not involved with the actual
conflict.
The line of fighting in western Europe in World War I.