WJEC English GCSE Poetry Anthology

"I wander thro' each charter'd street"                            "charter'd Thames"

"In every cry of every Man"                                           "In every Infant's cry of fear"

"and mark in every face I meet / Marks of weakness, marks of woe"

"the mind-forg'd manacles I hear"

"Chimney-sweepers cry"

"every black'ning Church appalls"

"runs in blood down Palace walls"

"youthful Harlots curse"

"blasts the new born Infant's tear"

"and blights with plagues the Marriage hearse."

"there are just not enough straight lines"                        "beams balance crookedly on supports"

"nails clutch at open seams"                                           "problem"

"nothing is flat / Or parallel."                                           "the whole structure leans dangerously"

"rough frame"                                                                  "miraculous"

"squeezed a living space"                                               "dared"

"eggs in a wire basket"  

"fragile curves"

"the dark edge"

"slanted universe"

"the bright, thin walls of faith"

"if I should die, think only this of me:"                                                  

"foreign field"

"England" / "English" (note this is repeated 6 times)

"rich earth a richer dust concealed"

"her sights and sounds"

"a body of England's, breathing English air"

"blest by suns of home"

"all evil shed away, a pulse in the eternal mind"

"gives somewhere back the thoughts by England given"

"in hearts at peace, under an English heaven"

"bent double, like old beggars"                                        "coughing like hags"   "cursed"                                                                           "trudge"                                                         "men marched asleep"               "limped on"                   "lame"                                          "fatigue"                                      "blind"                           "deaf"                                                     "Gas! GAS! Quick, boys!" (monosyllabic, exclamatory sentences) "clumsy"                                                                       "flound'ring like a man in fire or lime"             "in all my dreams before my helpless sight"                 "incurable"     

"guttering, choking, drowning" (note also repetition of drowning)

"you too could pace" (synthetic personalisation)

"flung"                                                                           "white eyes writhing in his face"

"gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs"                      "obscene as cancer"                           

"to children"                             "innocent"                     "desperate glory"

"the old lie: Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori"= "It is sweet and proper to die for the fatherland."

"for years afterwards"         <--  (temporal marker)   -->        "This morning"

"wasted young"                                                                    "tended"

"a chit of bone, the china plate of a shoulder blade"            "relic of a finger"

"the blown / and broken bird's egg of a skull" (note enjambement and plosive)

"nesting machine guns"                                "to walk, not run"

"the earth stands sentinel"                            "reminders of what happened / like a wound"

"one long grave"                                           "in boots that outlasted them"

"broken mosaic"                                            "linked arm in arm"

"their socketed heads"                                  "and their jaws, those that had them, dropped open"

"sung" (link context)                  "with this unearthing" (embed)                  "absent tongues"

"handle and hold"                                     "explore"                             "trace"

"frozen river which ran through his face"                                             "feel the hurt"

"blown hinge"                                                                                       "mind and attend"

"damaged, porcelain collar-bone"

"fractured rudder of shoulder-blade"

"parachute silk of his punctured lung"

"climb the rungs"                                                            

"foetus of metal"                                                                                 "grazed heart"

"a sweating, unexploded mine buried deep in his mind"

"then, and only then, did I come close"

"She sits in the tawny vapour"                                          "the fog hangs thicker"

"whose webby fold on fold / Like a waning taper"             "glimmers cold"

"a messenger's knock cracks smartly"                              "flashed news"

"dazes to understand"                                                       "He-has fallen-in the far South Land..."

"firelight flicker"                                                                 "fresh-firm"

"the postman nears and goes"

"whom the worm now knows"

"hoped return"

"brake and burn"

"in the summer weather / And of new love that they would learn."

"I sit in the top of the wood, my eyes closed"                                  "falsifying dream"

"hooked head and hooked feet"                    "my feet are locked" (note repetition of "feet / "foot")

"in sleep rehearse perfect kills"                     "I kill where I please because it is all mine" 

"convenience"                                                                                  "advantage"

"earth's face upward for my inspection"

"Creation" (note the repetition & capitalisation of the noun)            "sophistry"

"fly up, and revolve it all slowly"                                                       "my flight is direct"

"tearing off heads"                    "the sun is behind me"                   "the allotment of death"

"no arguments assert my right"                                                       "nothing has changed"   

"my eye has permitted no change"                 "I am going to keep things like this"

"I met a traveller"                                            "antique land" (topographical marker)

"vast and trunkless"                                        "stone"

"in the desert"                                                 "on the sand" (setting: Egypt)

"half sunk a shattered" (note sibilance also)                         "frown"                                                            "wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command" "survive"                                                          "lifeless"

"on the pedestal"                                                                                                                             "My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings; / Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!"

"nothing beside remains."(note caesura reflecting fragmentation mimicing his ephemeral power)

"decay"                                                            "colossal Wreck"                                            "boundless and bare" (note plosive)                "lone" 

"stretch" (perhaps the power was overstretched?)

"flax-dam festered in the heart"                            "rotted"

"sweltered in the punishing sun"                           "coarse croaking"

"gargled delicately"                                               "burst"

"best of all"                                                            "slobber"

"every spring"                                                        "wait and watch"

"Miss Walls would tell us"                                     "they were yellow in the sun and brown in rain"

"Then one hot day when fields were rank"           "angry frogs"                                      

"I sickened, turned, and ran"                                "the slap and plop were obscene threats"

"invaded"                                         "cocked"                              "mud grenades"

"great slime kings"                          "vengeance"                         "clutch it"  

"mellow fruitfulness"                                    "close bosom friend of the maturing sun"

"load and bless"                                                                              "plump"                                  "o'erbrimm'd"                                 "never cease"                            "and still more"

"fill all fruit with ripeness to the core"              contrasts                    "sallows"

"thee sitting careless on a granary floor"

"conspiring"                                                                   "winnowing wind"

"drows'd with the fume of poppies"                               "the last oozing hours"

"where are Songs of spring?"                                       "music"                             "bleat"                                            "sing"                      "whistles"

"soft-dying day"                             "wailful"                   "mourn"   

"gathering swallows twitter in the skies"

"in the frosty season"                       "sun"                             "blaz'd"

"cottage"

"for all of us"

"rapture"

"proud and exalting, like an untir'd horse"

"tinkled like iron"                              "din"                              "rang"                                 

"we hiss'd along"                                                                   "resounding horn"

"melancholy"

"sparkling"                                                                             "orange sky"

"as imperceptibly as Grief / The Summer lapsed away - / Too imperceptible"

"Perfidy"

"A Quietness distilled"

"Twilight long begun"

"Sequestered Afternoon"

"Dusk drew earlier in - / The Morning foreign shone -"

"A coureteous, yet harrowing Grace"

"Wing" and "Keel"

"light escape / Into the Beautiful."

"Summer is fading"                                     "fall in ones and twos"

"bordering"                                                  "new"

"hollows"                                                     "setting free"

"young mothers assemble"                         "behind them, at intervals"

"skilled trades"                                            "an estateful of washing"

"Our Wedding, lying / Near the television"

"lovers"                                                       "unripe acorns"

"expect"

"their beauty has thickened"

"something is pushing them to the side of their own lives"

"not a red rose or a satin heart"                                         "not a cute card or a kissogram"

"I give you an onion" (note the repetition of this)               "it is a moon"

"it promises light"                                                               "blinds you with tears"

"a wobbling photo of grief"                                                 "I am trying to be truthful."                      

"fierce kiss"                                                                        "possessive and faithful"

"Take it."                                                                             "Lethal."

"shrink to a wedding-ring"

"cling to your fingers, cling to your knife"

"she walks in beauty, like the night / of cloudless climes and starry skies"

"dark and bright"                                                                      "tender light"

"gaudy day"                                                                              "raven tress"

"one shade the more, one ray the less"

"where thought serenely sweet express how pure"

"so soft, so calm, yet eloquent"

"the smiles that win, the tints that glow"

"goodness spent"

"love"

"I could pick anything and think of you" (note she then goes on to list everyday things)

"the lamp"                                                           "the glossy blue"        

"sure as shooting arrows to the heart"                "I could choose any hero"

"chain mail glinting, to set me free"                     "awkward reminiscences"

"do-it-now-and-take-no-risks"                             "sissy names"

"kiss you senseless"                                           "oddly male: Big Bad Floyd"

"teenage crushes on worthless boys"                "fall short of the Divine"

"sweet with a dark and hollow centre"                

"who's satisfied simply with what's good for us, when has the ordinary ever been news?"

"To keep me from melancholy (call in blues), / I fill this stolen time with you"

"How do I love thee?"

"depth and breadth and height"

"to the level of every day's most quiet need, by sun and candlelight"

"I love thee with the passion put to use in my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith"

"with my lost saints"

"I shall but love thee better after death"