Forty Favourite Poems

Transcription

1 Photocopiable Resources Forty Favourite Poems Series One He tossed her lightly with his horns Into a prickly hedge of thorns Sarah Byng by Hilaire Belloc B & D Publishing 2002 ISBN These resources are photocopiable within the purchasing establishment only.

2 CONTENTS - Forty Favourite Poems Series One 1. The Charge of the Light Brigade (Alfred, Lord Tennyson) 2. The Flattered Flying Fish and The Hippopotamus s Birthday (E. V. Rieu) 3. I Remember, I Remember (Thomas Hood) 4-5 Sarah Byng (Hilaire Belloc) 6. From a Railway Carriage and Where Go The Boats (Robert Louis Stevenson) 7. Daffodils ( William Wordsworth) 8. The Snitterjipe (James Reeves) 9. Sea Fever (John Masefield) 10. from Auguries of Innocence (William Blake) 11. Cats (Eleanor Farjeon) and Mice ( Rose Fyleman) 12. An Introduction to Dogs (Ogden Nash) 13. The Owl, The Eagle and The Kraken (Alfred, Lord Tennyson) 14. Silver and Five Eyes (Walter de la Mare) 15. Jabberwocky (Lewis Carroll) 16. The Brook (Alfred, Lord Tennyson) 17. When icicles hang by the wall and Blow, blow thou winter wind (Shakespeare) 18. Meg Merrilies and from A Song about Myself (John Keats) 19. The Lamb (William Blake) 20. The Tiger (William Blake) 21. The Owl and the Pussy-Cat (Edward Lear) 22. The Fox (Anon) 23. from Reynard the Fox (John Masefield) 24-5 Snake (D. H. Lawrence) 26. The Sea (James Reeves) The Unicorn (E. V. Rieu) 29. Cargoes (John Masefield) 30. The Children and Sir Nameless (Thomas Hardy) 31. Colonel Fazackerley (Charles Causley) 32. The Village Blacksmith (Henry Wadsworth Longfellow) A Visit from St. Nicholas (C. C. Moore) 35. A Smuggler s Song (Rudyard Kipling) 36. Adlestrop and A Cat (Edward Thomas) 37. from Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard (Thomas Gray) 38. Inversnaid (Gerard Manley Hopkins) 39. The Donkey (G. K. Chesterton) 40. To a Butterfly and She Dwelt Among the Untrodden Ways (William Wordsworth) 41. The Lake Isle of Innisfree (W. B. Yeats) 42. Home-Thoughts, From Abroad (Robert Browning) The Walrus and the Carpenter (Lewis Carroll) 45. The Hag (Robert Herrick) and The Witches Song (William Shakespeare) 46. Notes and Acknowledgements B & D Publishing P.O. Box 4658 Stratford Upon Avon England CV37 1EP Tel: Fax:

3 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. 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. William Wordsworth ( ) Daffodils Daffodils is probably one of the best known poems in English. Wordsworth was walking in the Lake District with his sister when they saw a lovely bank of daffodils blowing in the wind beside the lake. Later the scene often came back into his mind and he saw again the daffodils dancing in the breeze. 1. Describe the picture that comes into your mind when you read the poem. 2. Write down the meaning of the following words from the poem: vales (line 2) host (line 4) Milky Way (line 8) margin (line 10) sprightly (line 12) glee (line 14) jocund (line16) pensive (line 20) solitude (line 22) 3. The word wandered is a movement word. Make a list of all the movement words in the poem. 4. How did the poet feel when he saw the daffodils? Which words or phrases in the poem tell you about his feelings? 5. This poem has been popular ever since it was written in Why do you think it is so popular? What did you like, or not like, about the poem? 7

4 Cargoes QUINQUIREME of Nineveh from distant Ophir Rowing home to haven in sunny Palestine With a cargo of ivory, And apes and peacocks, Sandalwood, cedarwood, and sweet white wine. Stately Spanish galleon coming from the Isthmus, Dipping through the tropics by the palm-green shores, With a cargo of diamonds, Emeralds, amethysts, Topazes, and cinnamon, and gold moidores. Dirty British coaster with a salt-caked smoke stack Butting through the Channel in the mad March days, With a cargo of Tyne coal. Road-rail, pig-lead, Firewood, iron-ware, and cheap tin trays. A Spanish Galleon John Masefield ( ) 1. For thousands of years the sea was the only way people could travel about the world. The sea meant travel and adventure, treasure and trade. In this poem the poet paints pictures of three very different types of ship from different periods of history. What are the three types of ship he describes? 2. A quinquireme was an ancient ship with five banks of oars. Where was the quinquireme in the poem going? What was its cargo? 3. The stately Spanish galleon was coming from the Isthmus of Panama. What was the treasure ship carrying? 4. The Dirty British coaster with a salt-caked smoke stack would have been a familiar sight to the poet. What cargo was it carrying? 5. The third stanza of the poem contrasts with the first two stanzas. In what ways does it differ? 6. Why do the ships in the first two stanzas seem so romantic and exotic? 7. Masefield loved the sea and he loved ships. How can you tell this from the poem? 8. This poem has caught the imagination of people for nearly a hundred years. It is always in any selection of favourite poems. What is it about this poem that captures the imagination? 29

5 from Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard The curfew tolls the knell of parting day, The lowing herd winds slowly o er the lea, The plowman homeward plods his weary way, And leaves the world to darkness and to me. Now fades the glimmering landscape on the sight, And all the air a solemn stillness holds, Save where the beetle wheels his droning flight, And drowsy tinklings lull the distant folds. Save that from yonder ivy-mantled tower The moping owl does to the moon complain Of such as, wandering near her secret bower, Molest her ancient solitary reign. Beneath those rugged elms, that yew-tree s shade, Where heaves the turf in many a mouldering heap, Each in his narrow cell forever laid, The rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep. The breezy call of incense-breathing morn, The swallow twittering from the straw-built shed, The cock s shrill clarion, or the echoing horn, No more shall rouse them from their lowly bed. 1. What time of day is described in the first two stanzas of the poem? 2. What do the words The curfew tolls the knell of parting day mean? 3. Describe the scene that the poet creates in the first four stanzas. 4. From stanza four onwards the poet talks about the dead men buried in the churchyard. What does he say about them? 5. Why does the poet say that the rich and famous shouldn t feel superior to the poor men buried here? 6. What does the line The paths of glory lead but to the grave mean? For them no more the blazing hearth shall burn, Or busy housewife ply her evening care: No children run to lisp their sire s return, Or climb his knee the envied kiss to share. Oft did the harvest to their sickle yield, Their furrow of the stubborn glebe has broke: How jocund did they drive their team afield! How bowed the woods beneath their sturdy stroke! Let not ambition mock their useful toil, Their homely joys, and destiny obscure; Nor grandeur hear with a disdainful smile The short and simple annals of the poor. The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power, And all that beauty, all that wealth e er gave, Awaits alike the inevitable hour. The paths of glory lead but to the grave. Thomas Gray ( ) 37

6 Home-Thoughts, From Abroad Oh, to be in England Now that April s there, And whoever wakes in England Sees, some morning, unaware, That the lowest boughs and the brushwood sheaf Round the elm-tree bole are in tiny leaf, While the chaffinch sings on the orchard bough In England - now! And after April, when May follows, And the whitethroat builds, and all the swallows! Hark! Where my blossom d pear-tree in the hedge Leans to the field and scatters on the clover Blossoms and dewdrops - at the bent spray s edge - That s the wise thrush; he sings each song twice over, Lest you should think he never could recapture The first fine careless rapture! And though the fields look rough with hoary dew, All will be gay when noontide wakes anew The buttercups, the little children s dower - Far brighter than this gaudy melon-flower! Robert Browning lived for many years in Italy. This poem describes the pictures that came into his mind when he thought about England in Springtime. Robert Browning ( ) 1. What was the first sign of Spring in England that Browning mentions? 2. Describe or draw the picture that comes into your mind when you read the line While the chaffinch sings on the orchard bough. 3. Make a list of all the birds that are mentioned in the poem. 4. How does the poet describe his blossom d pear-tree in the hedge? 5. What does the poet say about the thrush? 6. What does the word rapture mean? What does the word suggest about the way the thrush sings? 7. In England, in May, how do the fields look in the early morning? How do they look at midday? 8. This poem is full of nostalgic pictures of England in Springtime. In the last line of the poem, the poet mentions a flower in his Italian garden. What is the effect of this line and the comparison it makes? 42