British Literature Exam 2

Little lamb, who made thee?
Does thou know who made thee,
Gave thee life, and bid thee feed
By the stream and o’er the mead;

William Blake - The Lamb

Gave thee clothing of delight,
Softest clothing, woolly, bright;
Gave thee such a tender voice,
Making all the vales rejoice?
    Little lamb, who made thee?
    Does thou know who made thee?

William Blake - The Lamb

Little lamb, I’ll tell thee;
Little lamb, I’ll tell thee:
He is callèd by thy name,
For He calls Himself a Lamb.

William Blake - The Lamb

He is meek, and He is mild,
He became a little child.
I a child, and thou a lamb,
We are callèd by His name.
    Little lamb, God bless thee!
    Little lamb, God bless thee!

William Blake - The Lamb

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 bereaved of light.

William Blake - The Little Black Boy

My mother taught me underneath a tree,
    And, sitting down before the heat of day,
She took me on her lap and kissèd me,
    And, pointing to the East, began to say:

William Blake - The Little Black Boy

‘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.

William Blake - The Little Black Boy

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 sunburnt face
    Are but a cloud, and like a shady grove.

William Blake - The Little Black Boy

For, when our souls have learned the heat to bear,
    The cloud will vanish, we shall hear His voice,
Saying, “Come out from the grove, my love and care,
    And round my golden tent like lambs rejoice.”’

William Blake - The Little Black Boy

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,

William Blake - The Little Black Boy

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 - The Little Black Boy

O rose, thou art sick!
    The invisible worm,
That flies in the night,
    In the howling storm,

William Blake - The Sick Rose

Has found out thy bed
    Of crimson joy,
And his dark secret love
    Does thy life destroy.

William Blake - The Sick Rose

Tiger, tiger, burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

William Blake - The Tiger

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?

William Blake - The Tiger

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

William Blake - The Tiger

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

William Blake - The Tiger

When the stars threw down their spears,
And watered heaven with their tears,
Did He smile His work to see?
Did He who made the lamb make thee?

William Blake - The Tiger

Tiger, tiger, burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

William Blake - The Tiger

I went to the Garden of Love,
    And saw what I never had seen;
A Chapel was built in the midst,
    Where I used to play on the green.

William Blake - The Garden of Love

And the gates of this Chapel were shut,
    And ‘Thou shalt not’ writ over the door;
So I turned to the Garden of Love
    That so many sweet flowers bore.

William Blake - The Garden of Love

And I saw it was filled with graves,
    And tombstones where flowers should be;
And priests in black gowns were walking their rounds,
    And binding with briars my joys and desires.

William Blake - The Garden of Love

I wander through each chartered street,
    Near where the chartered Thames does flow,
A mark in every face I meet,
    Marks of weakness, marks of woe.

William Blake - London

In every cry of every man,
    In every infant’s cry of fear,
In every voice, in every ban,
    The mind-forged manacles I hear:

William Blake - London

How the chimney-sweeper’s cry
    Every blackening church appals,
And the hapless soldier’s sigh
    Runs in blood down palace-walls.

William Blake - London

But most, through midnight streets I hear
    How the youthful harlot’s curse
Blasts the new-born infant’s tear,
    And blights with plagues the marriage hearse.

William Blake - London

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan

A stately pleasure-dome decree:

Where Alph, the sacred river, ran

Through caverns measureless to man

Down to a sunless sea.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Kubla Khan

So twice five miles of fertile ground

With walls and towers were girdled round;

And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills,

Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree;

And here were forests ancient as the hills,

Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Kubla Khan

As e’er beneath a waning moon was haunted

By woman wailing for her demon-lover!

And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething,

As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing,

Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Kubla Khan

A mighty fountain momently was forced:

Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst

Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail,

Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher’s flail:

And mid these dancing rocks at once and ever

It flung up momently the sacred river.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Kubla Khan

Five miles meandering with a mazy motion

Through wood and dale the sacred river ran,

Then reached the caverns measureless to man,

And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean;

And ’mid this tumult Kubla heard from far

Ancestral voices prophesying war!

Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Kubla Khan

The shadow of the dome of pleasure

Floated midway on the waves;

Where was heard the mingled measure

From the fountain and the caves.

It was a miracle of rare device,

A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice!

Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Kubla Khan

A damsel with a dulcimer

In a vision once I saw:

It was an Abyssinian maid

And on her dulcimer she played,

Singing of Mount Abora.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Kubla Khan

Could I revive within me

Her symphony and song,

To such a deep delight ’twould win me,

That with music loud and long,

I would build that dome in air,

That sunny dome! those caves of ice!

Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Kubla Khan

And all who heard should see them there,

And all should cry, Beware! Beware!

His flashing eyes, his floating hair!

Weave a circle round him thrice,

And close your eyes with holy dread

For he on honey-dew hath fed,

And drunk the milk of Paradise.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Kubla Khan

Five years have past; five summers, with the length

Of five long winters! and again I hear

These waters, rolling from their mountain-springs

With a soft inland murmur.—Once again

Do I behold these steep and lofty cliffs,

That on a wild secluded scene impress

William Wordsworth - Tintern Abbey

Thoughts of more deep seclusion; and connect

The landscape with the quiet of the sky.

The day is come when I again repose

Here, under this dark sycamore, and view

These plots of cottage-ground, these orchard-tufts,

Which at this season, with their unripe fruits,

William Wordsworth - Tintern Abbey

Are clad in one green hue, and lose themselves

'Mid groves and copses. Once again I see

These hedge-rows, hardly hedge-rows, little lines

Of sportive wood run wild: these pastoral farms,

Green to the very door; and wreaths of smoke

Sent up, in silence, from among the trees!

William Wordsworth - Tintern Abbey

With some uncertain notice, as might seem

Of vagrant dwellers in the houseless woods,

Or of some Hermit's cave, where by his fire

The Hermit sits alone.

William Wordsworth - Tintern Abbey

These beauteous forms,

Through a long absence, have not been to me

As is a landscape to a blind man's eye:

But oft, in lonely rooms, and 'mid the din

Of towns and cities, I have owed to them,

In hours of weariness, sensations sweet,

William Wordsworth - Tintern Abbey

Felt in the blood, and felt along the heart;

And passing even into my purer mind

With tranquil restoration:—feelings too

Of unremembered pleasure: such, perhaps,

As have no slight or trivial influence

On that best portion of a good man's life,

William Wordsworth - Tintern Abbey

His little, nameless, unremembered, acts

Of kindness and of love. Nor less, I trust,

To them I may have owed another gift,

Of aspect more sublime; that blessed mood,

In which the burthen of the mystery,

In which the heavy and the weary weight

William Wordsworth - Tintern Abbey

Of all this unintelligible world,

Is lightened:—that serene and blessed mood,

In which the affections gently lead us on,—

Until, the breath of this corporeal frame

And even the motion of our human blood

Almost suspended, we are laid asleep

William Wordsworth - Tintern Abbey

In body, and become a living soul:

While with an eye made quiet by the power

Of harmony, and the deep power of joy,

We see into the life of things.

William Wordsworth - Tintern Abbey

If this

Be but a vain belief, yet, oh! how oft—

In darkness and amid the many shapes

Of joyless daylight; when the fretful stir

Unprofitable, and the fever of the world,

William Wordsworth - Tintern Abbey

Have hung upon the beatings of my heart—

How oft, in spirit, have I turned to thee,

O sylvan Wye! thou wanderer thro' the woods,

         How often has my spirit turned to thee!

William Wordsworth - Tintern Abbey

And now, with gleams of half-extinguished thought,

With many recognitions dim and faint,

And somewhat of a sad perplexity,

The picture of the mind revives again:

While here I stand, not only with the sense

Of present pleasure, but with pleasing thoughts

William Wordsworth - Tintern Abbey

That in this moment there is life and food

For future years. And so I dare to hope,

Though changed, no doubt, from what I was when first

I came among these hills; when like a roe

I bounded o'er the mountains, by the sides

Of the deep rivers, and the lonely streams,

William Wordsworth - Tintern Abbey

Wherever nature led: more like a man

Flying from something that he dreads, than one

Who sought the thing he loved. For nature then

(The coarser pleasures of my boyish days

And their glad animal movements all gone by)

To me was all in all.—I cannot paint

William Wordsworth - Tintern Abbey

What then I was. The sounding cataract

Haunted me like a passion: the tall rock,

The mountain, and the deep and gloomy wood,

Their colours and their forms, were then to me

An appetite; a feeling and a love,

That had no need of a remoter charm,

William Wordsworth - Tintern Abbey

By thought supplied, nor any interest

Unborrowed from the eye.—That time is past,

And all its aching joys are now no more,

And all its dizzy raptures. Not for this

Faint I, nor mourn nor murmur; other gifts

Have followed; for such loss, I would believe,

William Wordsworth - Tintern Abbey

Abundant recompense. For I have learned

To look on nature, not as in the hour

Of thoughtless youth; but hearing oftentimes

The still sad music of humanity,

Nor harsh nor grating, though of ample power

To chasten and subdue.—And I have felt

William Wordsworth - Tintern Abbey

A presence that disturbs me with the joy

Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime

Of something far more deeply interfused,

Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,

And the round ocean and the living air,

And the blue sky, and in the mind of man:

William Wordsworth - Tintern Abbey

A motion and a spirit, that impels

All thinking things, all objects of all thought,

And rolls through all things. Therefore am I still

A lover of the meadows and the woods

And mountains; and of all that we behold

From this green earth; of all the mighty world

William Wordsworth - Tintern Abbey

Of eye, and ear,—both what they half create,

And what perceive; well pleased to recognise

In nature and the language of the sense

The anchor of my purest thoughts, the nurse,

The guide, the guardian of my heart, and soul

Of all my moral being.

William Wordsworth - Tintern Abbey

Nor perchance,

If I were not thus taught, should I the more

Suffer my genial spirits to decay:

For thou art with me here upon the banks

Of this fair river; thou my dearest Friend,

My dear, dear Friend; and in thy voice I catch

William Wordsworth - Tintern Abbey

The language of my former heart, and read

My former pleasures in the shooting lights

Of thy wild eyes. Oh! yet a little while

May I behold in thee what I was once,

My dear, dear Sister! and this prayer I make,

Knowing that Nature never did betray

William Wordsworth - Tintern Abbey

The heart that loved her; 'tis her privilege,

Through all the years of this our life, to lead

From joy to joy: for she can so inform

The mind that is within us, so impress

With quietness and beauty, and so feed

With lofty thoughts, that neither evil tongues,

William Wordsworth - Tintern Abbey

Rash judgments, nor the sneers of selfish men,

Nor greetings where no kindness is, nor all

The dreary intercourse of daily life,

Shall e'er prevail against us, or disturb

Our cheerful faith, that all which we behold

Is full of blessings. Therefore let the moon

William Wordsworth - Tintern Abbey

Shine on thee in thy solitary walk;

And let the misty mountain-winds be free

To blow against thee: and, in after years,

When these wild ecstasies shall be matured

Into a sober pleasure; when thy mind

Shall be a mansion for all lovely forms,

William Wordsworth - Tintern Abbey

Thy memory be as a dwelling-place

For all sweet sounds and harmonies; oh! then,

If solitude, or fear, or pain, or grief,

Should be thy portion, with what healing thoughts

Of tender joy wilt thou remember me,

And these my exhortations! Nor, perchance—

William Wordsworth - Tintern Abbey

If I should be where I no more can hear

Thy voice, nor catch from thy wild eyes these gleams

Of past existence—wilt thou then forget

That on the banks of this delightful stream

We stood together; and that I, so long

A worshipper of Nature, hither came

William Wordsworth - Tintern Abbey

Unwearied in that service: rather say

With warmer love—oh! with far deeper zeal

Of holier love. Nor wilt thou then forget,

That after many wanderings, many years

Of absence, these steep woods and lofty cliffs,

And this green pastoral landscape, were to me

More dear, both for themselves and for thy sake!

William Wordsworth - Tintern Abbey

A simple Child,

That lightly draws its breath,

And feels its life in every limb,

What should it know of death?

William Wordsworth - We Are Seven

I met a little cottage Girl:

She was eight years old, she said;

Her hair was thick with many a curl

That clustered round her head.

William Wordsworth - We Are Seven

She had a rustic, woodland air,

And she was wildly clad:

Her eyes were fair, and very fair;

—Her beauty made me glad.

William Wordsworth - We Are Seven

“Sisters and brothers, little Maid,

How many may you be?”

“How many? Seven in all,” she said,

And wondering looked at me.

William Wordsworth - We Are Seven

“And where are they? I pray you tell.”

She answered, “Seven are we;

And two of us at Conway dwell,

And two are gone to sea.

William Wordsworth - We Are Seven

“Two of us in the church-yard lie,

My sister and my brother;

And, in the church-yard cottage, I

Dwell near them with my mother.”

William Wordsworth - We Are Seven

“You say that two at Conway dwell,

And two are gone to sea,

Yet ye are seven! I pray you tell,

Sweet Maid, how this may be.”

William Wordsworth - We Are Seven

Then did the little Maid reply,

“Seven boys and girls are we;

Two of us in the church-yard lie,

Beneath the church-yard tree.”

William Wordsworth - We Are Seven

“You run about, my little Maid,

Your limbs they are alive;

If two are in the church-yard laid,

Then ye are only five.”

William Wordsworth - We Are Seven

“Their graves are green, they may be seen,”

The little Maid replied,

“Twelve steps or more from my mother’s door,

And they are side by side.

William Wordsworth - We Are Seven

“My stockings there I often knit,

My kerchief there I hem;

And there upon the ground I sit,

And sing a song to them.

William Wordsworth - We Are Seven

“And often after sun-set, Sir,

When it is light and fair,

I take my little porringer,

And eat my supper there.

William Wordsworth - We Are Seven

“The first that died was sister Jane;

In bed she moaning lay,

Till God released her of her pain;

And then she went away.

William Wordsworth - We Are Seven

“So in the church-yard she was laid;

And, when the grass was dry,

Together round her grave we played,

My brother John and I.

William Wordsworth - We Are Seven

“And when the ground was white with snow,

And I could run and slide,

My brother John was forced to go,

And he lies by her side.”

William Wordsworth - We Are Seven

“How many are you, then,” said I,

“If they two are in heaven?”

Quick was the little Maid’s reply,

“O Master! we are seven.”

William Wordsworth - We Are Seven

“But they are dead; those two are dead!

Their spirits are in heaven!”

’Twas throwing words away; for still

The little Maid would have her will,

And said, “Nay, we are seven!”

William Wordsworth - We Are Seven

A slumber did my spirit seal;

I had no human fears:

She seemed a thing that could not feel

The touch of earthly years.

William Wordsworth - A Slumber did my Spirit Seal

No motion has she now, no force;

She neither hears nor sees;

Rolled round in earth's diurnal course,

With rocks, and stones, and trees.

William Wordsworth - A Slumber did my Spirit Seal

She dwelt among the untrodden ways

Beside the springs of Dove,

A Maid whom there were none to praise

And very few to love:

William Wordsworth - She Dwelt among the Untrodden Ways

A violet by a mossy stone

Half hidden from the eye!

—Fair as a star, when only one

Is shining in the sky.

William Wordsworth - She Dwelt among the Untrodden Ways

She lived unknown, and few could know

When Lucy ceased to be;

But she is in her grave, and, oh,

The difference to me!

William Wordsworth - She Dwelt among the Untrodden Ways

There was a time when meadow, grove, and stream,

       The earth, and every common sight,

                          To me did seem

                      Apparelled in celestial light,

William Wordsworth - Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood

The glory and the freshness of a dream.

It is not now as it hath been of yore;—

                      Turn wheresoe'er I may,

                          By night or day.

The things which I have seen I now can see no more.

William Wordsworth - Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood

The Rainbow comes and goes,

                      And lovely is the Rose,

                      The Moon doth with delight

       Look round her when the heavens are bare,

William Wordsworth - Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood

Waters on a starry night

                      Are beautiful and fair;

       The sunshine is a glorious birth;

       But yet I know, where'er I go,

That there hath past away a glory from the earth.

William Wordsworth - Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood

Now, while the birds thus sing a joyous song,

       And while the young lambs bound

                      As to the tabor's sound,

To me alone there came a thought of grief:

A timely utterance gave that thought relief,

William Wordsworth - Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood

And I again am strong:

The cataracts blow their trumpets from the steep;

No more shall grief of mine the season wrong;

I hear the Echoes through the mountains throng,

       The Winds come to me from the fields of sleep,

William Wordsworth - Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood

And all the earth is gay;

                           Land and sea

                Give themselves up to jollity,

                      And with the heart of May

                 Doth every Beast keep holiday;—

                      Thou Child of Joy,

Shout round me, let me hear thy shouts, thou happy Shepherd-boy.

William Wordsworth - Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood

Ye blessèd creatures, I have heard the call

      Ye to each other make; I see

The heavens laugh with you in your jubilee;

      My heart is at your festival,

            My head hath its coronal,

The fulness of your bliss, I feel—I feel it all.

William Wordsworth - Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood

Oh evil day! if I were sullen

                      While Earth herself is adorning,

                         This sweet May-morning,

                      And the Children are culling

William Wordsworth - Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood

On every side,

In a thousand valleys far and wide,

                      Fresh flowers; while the sun shines warm,

And the Babe leaps up on his Mother's arm:—

                      I hear, I hear, with joy I hear!

William Wordsworth - Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood

But there's a Tree, of many, one,

A single field which I have looked upon,

Both of them speak of something that is gone;

                      The Pansy at my feet

                      Doth the same tale repeat:

Whither is fled the visionary gleam?

Where is it now, the glory and the dream?

William Wordsworth - Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood

Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:

The Soul that rises with us, our life's Star,

                      Hath had elsewhere its setting,

                         And cometh from afar:

William Wordsworth - Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood

Not in entire forgetfulness,

                      And not in utter nakedness,

But trailing clouds of glory do we come

                      From God, who is our home:

Heaven lies about us in our infancy!

William Wordsworth - Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood

Shades of the prison-house begin to close

                      Upon the growing Boy,

But he beholds the light, and whence it flows,

                      He sees it in his joy;

William Wordsworth - Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood

The Youth, who daily farther from the east

                      Must travel, still is Nature's Priest,

                      And by the vision splendid

                      Is on his way attended;

At length the Man perceives it die away,

And fade into the light of common day.

William Wordsworth - Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood