The Poetry of W. B.

Yeats
(Higher Level Paper 2)

Name: ________________________; Date: _____________.

Read the task carefully and answer the questions.

1. Complete the empty cell for the statement to be true: 1 mark

A lyric poem captioning images from nature and descriptions of natural beauty is
called .
1 mark
2. Complete the empty cell for the statement to be true:
The technique used in the The years to come seemed waste of breath,
fragment is called A waste of breath the years behind…

. ,,

3. Using the fragment, explain the speaker’s feelings and desire to visit the
lake isle of Innisfree, using techniques as examples. (12-14 lines)
And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow, 4 marks
Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;
There midnight's all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,
And evening full of the linnet's wings.

I will arise and go now, for always night and day

I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey,
I hear it in the deep heart's core. ,,
Read the poem carefully and answer the questions.

September 1913

What need you, being come to sense,

But fumble in a greasy till
And add the halfpence to the pence
And prayer to shivering prayer, until
You have dried the marrow from the bone;
For men were born to pray and save;
Romantic Ireland's dead and gone,
It's with O'Leary in the grave.

Yet they were of a different kind,

The names that stilled your childish play,
They have gone about the world like wind,
But little time had they to pray
For whom the hangman's rope was spun,
And what, God help us, could they save?
Romantic Ireland's dead and gone,
It's with O'Leary in the grave.

Was it for this the wild geese spread

The grey wing upon every tide;
For this that all that blood was shed,
For this Edward Fitzgerald died,
And Robert Emmet and Wolfe Tone,
All that delirium of the brave?
 Romantic Ireland's dead and gone,
It's with O'Leary in the grave.

Yet could we turn the years again,

And call those exiles as they were
In all their loneliness and pain,
You'd cry `Some woman's yellow hair
Has maddened every mother's son':
They weighed so lightly what they gave.
But let them be, they're dead and gone,
They're with O'Leary in the grave.

4. Identify an important theme from the poem and explain its meaning. (6-
8 lines) 3 marks

5. Explain the speaker’s tone in the second stanza of the poem, making
reference to a technique used. (6-8 lines) 3 marks
6. (i) Build the rhyme scheme of the second stanza.
1 mark
Answer: ________________________________.
(ii) Write in the meter of the stanza.
2 marks

7. The poem brings up the issue of Ireland’s loss of cultural value. How, in
your opinion, does the poet feel about this? Support your answer with
quotes. 3 marks

Read the poem carefully and answer the questions.

Sailing to Byzantium

That is no country for old men. The young

In one another's arms, birds in the trees
– Those dying generations – at their song,
The salmon‐falls, the mackerel‐crowded seas,
Fish, flesh, or fowl, commend all summer long
Whatever is begotten, born, and dies.
Caught in that sensual music all neglect
Monuments of unageing intellect.
 An aged man is but a paltry thing,
A tattered coat upon a stick, unless
Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing
For every tatter in its mortal dress,
Nor is there singing school but studying
Monuments of its own magnificence;
And therefore I have sailed the seas and come
To the holy city of Byzantium.

O sages standing in God's holy fire

As in the gold mosaic of a wall,
Come from the holy fire, perne in a gyre,
And be the singing‐masters of my soul.
Consume my heart away; sick with desire
And fastened to a dying animal
It knows not what it is; and gather me
Into the artifice of eternity.

Once out of nature I shall never take

My bodily form from any natural thing,
But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make
Of hammered gold and gold enamelling
To keep a drowsy Emperor awake;
Or set upon a golden bough to sing
To lords and ladies of Byzantium
Of what is past, or passing, or to come.

8. Give an example of each from the poem: 1 mark

(i) Metaphor

(ii) Metonymy 1 mark

9. Describe how the speaker sees eternal life and how he thinks he will live
forever, using two different techniques. (10-12 lines) 4 marks

10. The poet describes how our society neglects the old and associates 3 marks
them with monuments with adult intellect. How does the poet react to this?

Read the task carefully and answer the questions.

11. Write the title of the poems where each of the following themes
appear:
(i) Life and death 1 mark
Answer: ________________________________.
(ii) Eternal youth 1 mark
Answer: ________________________________.
(iii) Freedom 1 mark
Answer: ________________________________.
12. Write an essay on the statement: ‘Yeats can certainly be called a great
poet’, following the structure: 18 marks
Intro
- General answer based on language and themes;
Content
- Analysis of language based on ‘The Wild Swans at Coole;
- Analysis of theme based on ‘An Irish Airman Foresees His Death’;
- Analysis of theme based on ‘Easter 1916’;
Conclusion
- Summary and personal opinion.

The Wild Swans at Coole

The trees are in their autumn beauty,

The woodland paths are dry,
Under the October twilight the water
Mirrors a still sky;
Upon the brimming water among the stones
Are nine-and-fifty swans.

The nineteenth autumn has come upon me

Since I first made my count;
I saw, before I had well finished,
All suddenly mount
And scatter wheeling in great broken rings
Upon their clamorous wings.

I have looked upon those brilliant creatures,

And now my heart is sore.
All's changed since I, hearing at twilight,
The first time on this shore,
The bell-beat of their wings above my head,
Trod with a lighter tread.
 
Unwearied still, lover by lover,
They paddle in the cold
Companionable streams or climb the air;
Their hearts have not grown old;
Passion or conquest, wander where they will,
Attend upon them still.

But now they drift on the still water,

Mysterious, beautiful;
Among what rushes will they build,
By what lake's edge or pool
Delight men's eyes when I awake some day
To find they have flown away?

An Irish Airman Foresees His Death

I know that I shall meet my fate

Somewhere among the clouds above;
Those that I fight I do not hate
Those that I guard I do not love;

My country is Kiltartan Cross,

My countrymen Kiltartan’s poor,
No likely end could bring them loss
Or leave them happier than before.

Nor law, nor duty bade me fight,

Nor public men, nor cheering crowds,
A lonely impulse of delight
Drove to this tumult in the clouds;

I balanced all, brought all to mind,

The years to come seemed waste of breath,
A waste of breath the years behind
In balance with this life, this death.
Easter 1916
I have met them at close of day
Coming with vivid faces
From counter or desk among grey
Eighteenth-century houses.
I have passed with a nod of the head
Or polite meaningless words,
Or have lingered awhile and said
Polite meaningless words,
And thought before I had done
Of a mocking tale or a gibe
To please a companion
Around the fire at the club,
Being certain that they and I
But lived where motley is worn:
All changed, changed utterly:
A terrible beauty is born.

That woman's days were spent

In ignorant good-will,
Her nights in argument
Until her voice grew shrill.
What voice more sweet than hers
When, young and beautiful,
She rode to harriers?
This man had kept a school
And rode our winged horse;
This other his helper and friend
Was coming into his force;
He might have won fame in the end,
So sensitive his nature seemed,
So daring and sweet his thought.
This other man I had dreamed
A drunken, vainglorious lout.
He had done most bitter wrong
To some who are near my heart,
Yet I number him in the song;
He, too, has resigned his part
In the casual comedy;
He, too, has been changed in his turn,
Transformed utterly:
A terrible beauty is born.

Hearts with one purpose alone

Through summer and winter seem
Enchanted to a stone
To trouble the living stream.
The horse that comes from the road,
The rider, the birds that range
From cloud to tumbling cloud,
Minute by minute they change;
A shadow of cloud on the stream
Changes minute by minute;
A horse-hoof slides on the brim,
And a horse plashes within it;
The long-legged moor-hens dive,
And hens to moor-cocks call;
Minute by minute they live:
The stone's in the midst of all.

Too long a sacrifice

Can make a stone of the heart.
O when may it suffice?
That is Heaven's part, our part
To murmur name upon name,
As a mother names her child
When sleep at last has come
On limbs that had run wild.
What is it but nightfall?
No, no, not night but death;
Was it needless death after all?
For England may keep faith
For all that is done and said.
We know their dream; enough
To know they dreamed and are dead;
And what if excess of love
Bewildered them till they died?
I write it out in a verse—
MacDonagh and MacBride
And Connolly and Pearse
Now and in time to be,
Wherever green is worn,
Are changed, changed utterly:
A terrible beauty is born.
Score: ____________; Mark: ____________;