Quotes from all poems Flashcards
OZYMANDIAS
“I met…”
“I met a traveller from an antique land.”
OZYMANDIAS
“Boundless…”
“Boundless and bare.”
OZYMANDIAS
“King…”
“King of kings.”
OZYMANDIAS
“A sneer…”
“A sneer of cold command.”
OZYMANDIAS
“Nothing beside…”
“Nothing beside remains.”
-short sentence
LONDON
“Marks of…”
“Marks of weakness, marks of woe.”
LONDON
“Every black…”
“Every black’ning church.”
LONDON
“Runs…”
“Runs in blood down palace walls.”
LONDON
“Mind-…”
“Mind-forged manacles.”
LONDON
“How the…”
“How the chimney sweeper’s cry.”
THE PRELUDE
“Led…”
“Led by her.”
THE PRELUDE
“Act of…”
“Act of stealth and troubled pleasure.”
THE PRELUDE
“Huge…”
“Huge peak, black and huge.”
THE PRELUDE
“Strode…”
“Strode after me.”
THE PRELUDE
“No pleasant…”
“No pleasant images of trees, of sea or sky, no colours of green fields.”
MY LAST DUCHESS
“That’s…”
“That’s my last duchess.”
MY LAST DUCHESS
“None puts by…”
“None puts by the curtain I have drawn for you.”
MY LAST DUCHESS
“Her looks…”
“Her looks went everywhere.”
MY LAST DUCHESS
“She thanked…”
“She thanked men good.”
MY LAST DUCHESS
“I gave…”
“I gave commands; then all smiles stopped together.”
CHARGE OF THE LIGHT BRIGADE
“Into the…”
“Into the valley of death.”
CHARGE OF THE LIGHT BRIGADE
“Theirs not…”
“Theirs not to make reply, theirs not to reason why, theirs but to do and die.”
-sent to do one job
CHARGE OF THE LIGHT BRIGADE
“Cannon to…”
“Cannon to right of them, cannon to left of them, cannon in front of them.”
-surrounded
CHARGE OF THE LIGHT BRIGADE
“Honour…”
“Honour the charge they made! Honour the light brigade.”
-ends poem with positive message to celebrate the soldiers’s efforts rather than the mistakes made.
CHARGE OF THE LIGHT BRIGADE
“All the…”
“All the world wonder’d.”
-could mean they admired their bravery, or why they were sent on the charge
EXPOSURE
“Our brains…”
“Our brains ache, in the merciless iced winds that knive us.”
-personification shows that nature is the enemy
EXPOSURE
“Black with…”
“Black with snow.”
- snow usually white, symbolising purity
- black connotations of evil
EXPOSURE
“For love…”
“For love of God seems dying.”
-shocks reader at the time
EXPOSURE
“But nothing…”
“But nothing happens.”
(REPETITION)
-structure emphasises boredom
EXPOSURE
“All their…”
“All their eyes are ice.”
-overpowered by nature
STORM ON THE ISLAND
“Exploding…”
“Exploding comfortably.”
-oxymoron reflects how the narrator has made sense of the land, even if it does not make sense to us.
STORM ON THE ISLAND
“Spits…”
“Spits like a tamed cat turned savage.”
-familiar things become frightening during storm.
STORM ON THE ISLAND
“Wind dives and…”
“Wind dives and strafes invisibly.”
-Wind is metaphorically symbolised as a fighter plane attacking the island.
STORM ON THE ISLAND
“It is a huge…”
“It is a hUge nothing that we fear.”
- Storm is invisible
- Nothing can protect the islanders.
STORM ON THE ISLAND
“This w…”
“This wizened earth.”
BAYONET CHARGE
“Suddenly…”
“Suddenly he awoke.”
- confused, vulnerable
- we are intrigued to know what happened before this
BAYONET CHARGE
“Sweating like…”
“Sweating like molten iron from the centre of his chest.”
-His patriotism had turned into fear and pain
BAYONET CHARGE
“Crawled in…”
“Crawled in a threshing circle.”
-vivid image of out-of-control movement suggesting that nature is affected by war
BAYONET CHARGE
“Rolled…”
“Rolled like a flame.”
-Simile emphasises the hair’s frantic movement and the dange the soldier is in.
BAYONET CHARGE
“His terror’s…”
“Is terror’s touchy dynamite.”
- Soldier seems to have become a weapon
- Driven purely by terror
REMAINS
“All three of…”
“All three of us open fire. three of a kind letting fly.”
-repetition of the collective pronoun shows that he believes it is their blame.
REMAINS
“Sort of…”
“Sort of inside out.”
- childish description
- speaker unable to process it
REMAINS
“Dug in…”
“Dug in behind enemy lines.”
-remains in his head
REMAINS
“His bloody…”
“His bloody life in my bloody hands.”
- alternate meanings for bloody
- reference to Macbeth
REMAINS
“Probably…”
“Probably armed, possibly not.”
- repetition hints he is replaying the moment in his mind
- troubled
POPPIES
“All my words…”
“All my words flattened, rolled, turned into felt, slowly melting.”
-her words are metaphorically melting, mirroring the breakdown in her emotions.
POPPIES
“The world…”
“The world overflowing like a treasure chest.”
POPPIES
“My stomach…”
“My stomach busy making tucks, darts, pleats.”
-Nervousness
POPPIES
“Steeled…”
“Steeled the softening of my face.”
-alliteration shows she is trying to be brave and not show her emotions.
POPPIES
“Hoping to hear…”
“Hoping to hear your playground voice catching the wind.”
-alliteration emphasises the erge to hear her son
WAR PHOTOGRAPHER
“In his…”
“In his darkroom he is finally alone.”
- “darkroom”
- adverb “finally”
WAR PHOTOGRAPHER
“Spools of…”
“Spools of suffering set out in ordered rows.”
WAR PHOTOGRAPHER
“A hundred agonies in…”
“A hundred agonies in black and white from which his editor will pick out five or six.”
WAR PHOTOGRAPHER
“Blood stained…”
“Blood stained into foreign dust.”
-lasting impact of war
WAR PHOTOGRAPHER
“The reader’s…”
“The reader’s eyeballs prick with tears between the bath and the pre-lunch beers.”
TISSUE
“Paper that lets…”
“Paper that lets the light shine through.”
-light symbol of truth
TISSUE
“Paper thinned…”
“Paper thinned by age.”
- paper represents old age
- power is weakened over time.
TISSUE
“Might fly…”
“Might fly our lives like paper kites.”
-simile of freedom
THE EMIGREE
“I am…”
“I am branded by an impression of sunlight.”
- the negative “branded” juxtaposes “sunlight”
- branded also suggests her view is permanent, it can’t change
THE EMIGREE
“They…”
“They accuse me.”
-sounds menacing, and the repetition enforces the threat
THE EMIGREE
“Time…”
“Time rolls as tanks.”
-time is personified as the enemy, yet it doesn’t change the speaker’s memories.
THE EMIGREE
“My shadow falls…”
“My shadow falls as evidence of sunlight.”
-ends on a positive note, despite the threat of death, the city is still assosiated with sunlight
THE EMIGREE
“That child’s…”
“That child’s vocabulary I carried here.”
-the metaphor makes the vocabulary seem precious.
KAMIKAZE
“A shaven head…”
“A shaven head full of powerful incantations and enough fuel for a one-way journey into history.”
-Our attention is focused on the compound word, suggesting the pilot will not come back.
KAMIKAZE
“The little fishing…”
“The little fishing boats struck out like bunting on a green-blue transparent sea.”
KAMIKAZE
“The dark shoals…”
“The dark shoals of fishes flashing silver as their bellies swiveled towards the sun.”
KAMIKAZE
“A tuna…”
“A tuna, the dark prince, muscular, dangerous.”
KAMIKAZE
“They treated him as…”
“They treated him as if he no longer existed.”
CHECKING OUT ME HISTORY
“Dem t…”
“Dem tell me.”
- repetition creates a sense of anger.
- The pronoun “Dem” separates him from white people.
CHECKING OUT ME HISTORY
“Bandage up…”
“Bandage up me eye with me own identity.”
CHECKING OUT ME HISTORY
“Blind me…”
“Blind me to me own identity.”
CHECKING OUT ME HISTORY
“Dem tell me what…”
“Dem tell me what dem want to tell me.”
-White people controlling.
CHECKING OUT ME HISTORY
“Carving…”
“Carving out me identity.”
