Poetry sheet 1

(1)

ROMEO AND JULIET: THE MEETING AT THE CAPULETS’ BALL

ROMEO:

O, she doth teach the torches to burn bright!

It seems she hangs upon the cheek of night

Like a rich jewel in an Ethiope's ear;

Beauty too rich for use, for earth too dear!

So shows a snowy dove trooping with crows,

As yonder lady o'er her fellows shows.

The measure done, I'll watch her place of stand,

And, touching hers, make blessed my rude hand.

Did my heart love till now? forswear it, sight!

For I ne'er saw true beauty till this night.

ROMEO

[To JULIET] If I profane with my unworthiest hand

This holy shrine, the gentle fine is this:

My lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand

To smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss.

JULIET

Good pilgrim, you do wrong your hand too much,

Which mannerly devotion shows in this;

For saints have hands that pilgrims' hands do touch,

And palm to palm is holy palmers' kiss.

ROMEO

Have not saints lips, and holy palmers too?

JULIET

Ay, pilgrim, lips that they must use in prayer.

ROMEO

O, then, dear saint, let lips do what hands do;

They pray, grant thou, lest faith turn to despair.

JULIET

Saints do not move, though grant for prayers' sake.

ROMEO

Then move not, while my prayer's effect I take.

Thus from my lips, by yours, my sin is purged.

JULIET

Then have my lips the sin that they have took.

ROMEO

(2)

Come, night; come, Romeo; come, thou day in night;

For thou wilt lie upon the wings of night

Whiter than new snow on a raven's back.

Come, gentle night, come, loving, black-brow'd night,

Give me my Romeo; and, when he shall die,

Take him and cut him out in little stars,

And he will make the face of heaven so fine

That all the world will be in love with night

And pay no worship to the garish sun.

SONNET 18

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?

Thou art more lovely and more temperate:

Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,

And summer's lease hath all too short a date:

Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,

And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;

And every fair from fair sometime declines,

By chance or nature's changing course untrimm'd;

But thy eternal summer shall not fade

Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest;

Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade,

When in eternal lines to time thou growest:

So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,

So long lives this and this gives life to thee.

SONNET 29

When, in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes,

I all alone beweep my outcast state

And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries

And look upon myself and curse my fate,

Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,

Featured like him, like him with friends possess'd,

Desiring this man's art and that man's scope,

With what I most enjoy contented least;

Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising,

Haply I think on thee, and then my state,

Like to the lark at break of day arising

(3)

AULD LANG SYNE

Robert Burns (1759-1796)

Should auld acquaintance be forgot,

and never brought to mind?

Should auld acquaintance be forgot

and days of auld lang syne?

For auld lang syne, my dear,

For auld lang syne,

We'll take a cup o' kindness yet

For auld lang syne

We twa hae run aboot the braes

And pou'd the gowans fine;

we've wander'd mony a weary foot

Sin' auld lang syne

We two hae paidled i' the burn,

Frae mornin' sun till dine;

But seas between us braid hae roar'd

Sin' auld lang syne

And here's a hand, my trusty friend,

And gie's a hand o' thine;

We'll take a cup o' kindness yet

For auld lang syne

Should auld acquaintance be forgot,

and never brought to mind?

Should auld acquaintance be forgot

and days of auld lang syne?

For auld lang syne, my dear,

For auld lang syne,

(4)

DO NOT GO GENTLE INTO THAT GOOD NIGHT/ Dylan Thomas

Do not go gentle into that good night,

Old age should burn and rage at close of day;

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,

Because their words had forked no lightning they

Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright

Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,

And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight

Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,

Curse, bless me now with your fierce tears, I pray.

A.E. Housman

How clear, how lovely bright,

Ensanguining the

skies

How beautiful to sight

How heavily it

dies

Those beams of morning play;

Into the west

away;

How heaven laughs out with glee

Past touch and

sight and sound

Where, like a bird set free,

Not further to be found

Up from the eastern sea

How hopeless underground

Soars the delightful day.

Falls the remorseful day.

To-day I shall be strong,

(5)

Now I shall keep the vow

I never kept before.

D.H. Lawrence

1885-1930

"The English Are So Nice"

The English are so nice

so awfully nice

they are the nicest people in the world.

And what's more, they're very nice about being nice

about your being nice as well!

If you're not nice they soon make you feel it.

Americans and French and Germans and so on

they're all very well

but they're not

really

nice, you know.

They're not nice in

our

sense of the word, are they now?

That's why one doesn't have to take them seriously.

We must be nice to them, of course,

of course, naturally.

But it doesn't really matter what you say to them,

they don't really understand

you can just say anything to them:

be nice, you know, just nice

but you must never take them seriously, they wouldn't understand,

just be nice, you know! Oh, fairly nice,

not too nice of course, they take advantage

but nice enough, just nice enough

to let them feel they're not quite as nice as they might be

W. H. Auden

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,

(6)

Silence the pianos and with muffled drum

Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead

Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead,

Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,

Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

He was my North, my South, my East and West,

My working week and my Sunday rest,

My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;

I thought that love would last for ever: I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now: put out every one;

Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;

Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood.

For nothing now can ever come to any good.

This Be the Verse

BY PHILIP LARKIN

They fuck you up, your mum and dad.

They may not mean to, but they do.

They fill you with the faults they had

And add some extra, just for you.

But they were fucked up in their turn

By fools in old-style hats and coats,

Who half the time were soppy-stern

And half at one another’s throats.

Man hands on misery to man.

It deepens like a coastal shelf.

Get out as early as you can,

(7)

I Have a Scheme

- Benjamin Zephaniah (Track 3)

I am here today my friends to tell you there is hope As high as that mountain may seem

I must tell you I have a dream And my friends

There is a tunnel at the end of the light. And beyond that tunnel I see a future I see a time

When angry white men

Will sit down with angry black women And talk about the weather,

Black employers will display notice-boards proclaiming, ‘Me nu care wea yu come from yu know

So long as yu can do a good day’s work, dat cool wid me.’ I see a time

When words like affirmative action Will have sexual connotations

And black people all over this blessed country of ours Will play golf,

Yes my friends that time is coming And in that time

Afro-Caribbean and Asian youth

Will spend big money on English takeaways And all police officers will be armed

With a dumplin, I see a time

A time when the President of the United States of America will stand up and say, ‘I inhaled

And it did kinda nice So rewind and cum again.’

Immigration officers will just check that you are all right And all black people will speak Welsh.

I may not get there my friends But I have seen that time

I see thousands of muscular black men on Hampstead Heath walking their poodles And hundreds of black female Formula 1 drivers

Racing around Birmingham in pursuit of a truly British way of life. I have a dream

That one day from all the churches of this land we will hear the sound of that great old English spiritual,

Here we go, Here we go, Here we go.

One day all great songs will be made that way.

I am here today my friends to tell you That the time is coming

When all people, regardless of colour or class, will have at least one Barry Manilow record

And vending-machines throughout the continent of Europe Will flow with sour sap and sugarcane juice,

For it is written in the great book of multiculturalism

(8)

Le me hear you say Multiculture

Amen

Let me hear you say Roti, Roti

A women.The time is coming To share my vision

I may not get there with you And I just hope you can cope But I have seen that time, With a future as black as this. And as an Equal Opportunities poet

It pleases me

PHILIP LARKIN