AQA GCSE English Literature

Power and Conflict Poetry

Paper 2
 Themes and ideas to consider between the poems:

 Power of nature
 Power of man
 Lasting effects of conflict
 People affected by Conflict
 Identity
 The abuse of power
 Death and loss
 Strong Emotions
 Honour, courage and pride
 Patriotism

In the exam you have to compare two poems on the theme of the question. Above is a list
of some of the themes and issues which may come up in an exam. As you read the poems,
look for areas of comparison and contrast in relation to the bullet points above.
 Ozymandias
By Percy Shelley

I met a traveller from an antique land

Who said: "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
`My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!'
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away".
 London
by William Blake

I wander through each chartered street,

Near where the chartered Thames does flow,

And mark in every face I meet

Marks of weakness, marks of woe.

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.

How the chimney-sweeper’s cry

Every blackening church appalls;

And the hapless soldier’s sigh

Runs in blood down palace walls.

But most through midnight streets I hear

How the youthful harlot’s curse

Blasts the newborn infant’s tear,

And blights with plagues the marriage hearse.

 The Prelude: stealing the boat

By William Wordsworth

One summer evening (led by her) I found

For so it seemed, with purpose of its own
A little boat tied to a willow tree
And measured motion like a living thing,
Within a rocky cove, its usual home.
Strode after me. With trembling oars I
Straight I unloosed her chain, and stepping in turned,

Pushed from the shore. It was an act of stealth And through the silent water stole my way

And troubled pleasure, nor without the voice Back to the covert of the willow tree;

Of mountain-echoes did my boat move on; There in her mooring-place I left my bark,
-And through the meadows homeward
Leaving behind her still, on either side, went, in grave

And serious mood; but after I had seen

Small circles glittering idly in the moon,
That spectacle, for many days, my brain
Until they melted all into one track
Worked with a dim and undetermined
Of sparkling light. But now, like one who rows, sense

Proud of his skill, to reach a chosen point Of unknown modes of being; o'er my
thoughts
With an unswerving line, I fixed my view
There hung a darkness, call it solitude
Upon the summit of a craggy ridge, Or blank desertion. No familiar shapes
The horizon's utmost boundary; far above Remained, no pleasant images of trees,

Was nothing but the stars and the grey sky. Of sea or sky, no colours of green fields;

She was an elfin pinnace; lustily But huge and mighty forms, that do not
live
I dipped my oars into the silent lake,
Like living men, moved slowly through the
And, as I rose upon the stroke, my boat mind

By day, and were a trouble to my dreams.

Went heaving through the water like a swan;

When, from behind that craggy steep till then

The horizon's bound, a huge peak, black and huge,

As if with voluntary power instinct,

Upreared its head. I struck and struck again,

And growing still in stature the grim shape

Towered up between me and the stars, and still,

 My Last Duchess
By Robert Browning

FERRARA.

That's my last Duchess painted on the wall, This sort of trifling? Even had you skill
Looking as if she were alive. I call In speech---(which I have not)---to make your will
That piece a wonder, now: Fr Pandolf's hands Quite clear to such an one, and say, ``Just this
Worked busily a day, and there she stands. ``Or that in you disgusts me; here you miss,
Will't please you sit and look at her? I said ``Or there exceed the mark''---and if she let
``Fr Pandolf'' by design, for never read Herself be lessoned so, nor plainly set
Strangers like you that pictured countenance, Her wits to yours, forsooth, and made excuse,
The depth and passion of its earnest glance, ---E'en then would be some stooping; and I choose
But to myself they turned (since none puts by Never to stoop. Oh sir, she smiled, no doubt,
The curtain I have drawn for you, but I) Whene'er I passed her; but who passed without
And seemed as they would ask me, if they durst, Much the same smile? This grew; I gave commands;
How such a glance came there; so, not the first Then all smiles stopped together. There she stands
Are you to turn and ask thus. Sir, 'twas not As if alive. Will't please you rise? We'll meet
Her husband's presence only, called that spot The company below, then. I repeat,
Of joy into the Duchess' cheek: perhaps The Count your master's known munificence
Fr Pandolf chanced to say ``Her mantle laps Is ample warrant that no just pretence
``Over my lady's wrist too much,'' or ``Paint Of mine for dowry will be disallowed;
``Must never hope to reproduce the faint Though his fair daughter's self, as I avowed
``Half-flush that dies along her throat:'' such stuff At starting, is my object. Nay, we'll go
Was courtesy, she thought, and cause enough Together down, sir. Notice Neptune, though,
For calling up that spot of joy. She had Taming a sea-horse, thought a rarity,
A heart---how shall I say?---too soon made glad, Which Claus of Innsbruck cast in bronze for me!
Too easily impressed; she liked whate'er
She looked on, and her looks went everywhere.
Sir, 'twas all one! My favour at her breast,
The dropping of the daylight in the West,
The bough of cherries some officious fool
Broke in the orchard for her, the white mule
She rode with round the terrace---all and each
Would draw from her alike the approving speech,
Or blush, at least. She thanked men,---good! but thanked
Somehow---I know not how---as if she ranked
My gift of a nine-hundred-years-old name
With anybody's gift. Who'd stoop to blame
 The Charge of the Light Brigade
By Alfred Lord Tennyson
Flash'd all their sabres bare,
HALF a league, half a league, Flash'd as they turn'd in air
Half a league onward, Sabring the gunners there,
All in the valley of Death Charging an army, while
Rode the six hundred. All the world wonder'd:
'Forward, the Light Brigade! Plunged in the battery-smoke
Charge for the guns! ' he said: Right thro' the line they broke;
Into the valley of Death Cossack and Russian
Rode the six hundred. Reel'd from the sabre-stroke
Shatter'd and sunder'd.
'Forward, the Light Brigade! ' Then they rode back, but not
Was there a man dismay'd? Not the six hundred.
Not tho' the soldier knew
Some one had blunder'd: Cannon to right of them,
Their's not to make reply, Cannon to left of them,
Their's not to reason why, Cannon behind them
Their's but to do and die: Volley'd and thunder'd;
Into the valley of Death Storm'd at with shot and shell,
Rode the six hundred. While horse and hero fell,
They that had fought so well
Cannon to right of them, Came thro' the jaws of Death,
Cannon to left of them, Back from the mouth of Hell,
Cannon in front of them All that was left of them,
Volley'd and thunder'd; Left of six hundred.
Storm'd at with shot and shell,
Boldly they rode and well, When can their glory fade?
Into the jaws of Death, O the wild charge they made!
All the world wonder'd.
Into the mouth of Hell
Honour the charge they made!
Rode the six hundred.
Honour the Light Brigade,
Noble six hundred!
.
 Exposure
By Wilfred Owen

Our brains ache, in the merciless iced east winds that knife us ...
Wearied we keep awake because the night is silent ...
Low drooping flares confuse our memory of the salient ...
Worried by silence, sentries whisper, curious, nervous,
But nothing happens.

Watching, we hear the mad gusts tugging on the wire.

Like twitching agonies of men among its brambles.
Northward incessantly, the flickering gunnery rumbles,
Far off, like a dull rumour of some other war.
What are we doing here?

The poignant misery of dawn begins to grow ...

We only know war lasts, rain soaks, and clouds sag stormy.
Dawn massing in the east her melancholy army
Attacks once more in ranks on shivering ranks of gray,
But nothing happens.

Sudden successive flights of bullets streak the silence.

Less deadly than the air that shudders black with snow,
With sidelong flowing flakes that flock, pause and renew,
We watch them wandering up and down the wind's nonchalance,
But nothing happens.

Pale flakes with lingering stealth come feeling for our faces--
We cringe in holes, back on forgotten dreams, and stare, snow-dazed,
Deep into grassier ditches. So we drowse, sun-dozed,
Littered with blossoms trickling where the blackbird fusses.
Is it that we are dying?

Slowly our ghosts drag home: glimpsing the sunk fires glozed
With crusted dark-red jewels; crickets jingle there;
For hours the innocent mice rejoice: the house is theirs;
Shutters and doors all closed: on us the doors are closed--
We turn back to our dying.
Since we believe not otherwise can kind fires burn;
Now ever suns smile true on child, or field, or fruit.
For God's invincible spring our love is made afraid;
Therefore, not loath, we lie out here; therefore were born,
For love of God seems dying.

To-night, His frost will fasten on this mud and us,

Shrivelling many hands and puckering foreheads crisp.
The burying-party, picks and shovels in their shaking grasp,
Pause over half-known faces. All their eyes are ice,
But nothing happens.
 Storm on the Island
By Seamus Heaney

We are prepared: we build our houses squat,

Sink walls in rock and roof them with good slate.
This wizened earth has never troubled us
With hay, so, as you see, there are no stacks
Or stooks that can be lost. Nor are there trees
Which might prove company when it blows full
Blast: you know what I mean - leaves and branches
Can raise a tragic chorus in a gale
So that you listen to the thing you fear
Forgetting that it pummels your house too.
But there are no trees, no natural shelter.
You might think that the sea is company,
Exploding comfortably down on the cliffs
But no: when it begins, the flung spray hits
The very windows, spits like a tame cat
Turned savage. We just sit tight while wind dives
And strafes invisibly. Space is a salvo,
We are bombarded with the empty air.
Strange, it is a huge nothing that we fear.
 Bayonet Charge
By Ted Hughes

Suddenly he awoke and was running – raw

In raw-seamed hot khaki, his sweat heavy,

Stumbling across a field of clods towards a green hedge

That dazzled with rifle fire, hearing

Bullets smacking the belly out of the air –

He lugged a rifle numb as a smashed arm;

The patriotic tear that had brimmed in his eye

Sweating like molten iron from the centre of his chest, –

In bewilderment then he almost stopped –

In what cold clockwork of the stars and the nations

Was he the hand pointing that second? He was running

Like a man who has jumped up in the dark and runs

Listening between his footfalls for the reason

Of his still running, and his foot hung like

Statuary in mid-stride. Then the shot-slashed furrows

Threw up a yellow hare that rolled like a flame

And crawled in a threshing circle, its mouth wide

Open silent, its eyes standing out.

He plunged past with his bayonet toward the green hedge,

King, honour, human dignity, etcetera

Dropped like luxuries in a yelling alarm

To get out of that blue crackling air

His terror’s touchy dynamite.

 Remains
By Simon Armitage

On another occasion, we get sent out

to tackle looters raiding a bank.
And one of them legs it up the road,
probably armed, possibly not.

Well myself and somebody else and somebody else

are all of the same mind,
so all three of us open fire.
Three of a kind all letting fly, and I swear

I see every round as it rips through his life –

I see broad daylight on the other side.
So we’ve hit this looter a dozen times
and he’s there on the ground, sort of inside out,

pain itself, the image of agony.

One of my mates goes by
and tosses his guts back into his body.
Then he’s carted off in the back of a lorry.

End of story, except not really.

His blood-shadow stays on the street, and out on patrol
I walk right over it week after week.
Then I’m home on leave. But I blink

and he bursts again through the doors of the bank.

Sleep, and he’s probably armed, possibly not.
Dream, and he’s torn apart by a dozen rounds.
And the drink and the drugs won’t flush him out –

he’s here in my head when I close my eyes,

dug in behind enemy lines,
not left for dead in some distant, sun-stunned, sand-smothered land
or six-feet-under in desert sand,

but near to the knuckle, here and now,

his bloody life in my bloody hands.
 Poppies
By Jane Weir

Three days before Armistice Sunday

and poppies had already been placed
on individual war graves. Before you left,
I pinned one onto your lapel, crimped petals,
spasms of paper red, disrupting a blockade
of yellow bias binding around your blazer.

Sellotape bandaged around my hand,

I rounded up as many white cat hairs
as I could, smoothed down your shirt's
upturned collar, steeled the softening
of my face. I wanted to graze my nose
across the tip of your nose, play at
being Eskimos like we did when
you were little. I resisted the impulse
to run my fingers through the gelled
blackthorns of your hair. All my words
flattened, rolled, turned into felt,

slowly melting. I was brave, as I walked

with you, to the front door, threw
it open, the world overflowing
like a treasure chest. A split second
and you were away, intoxicated.
After you'd gone I went into your bedroom,
released a song bird from its cage.
Later a single dove flew from the pear tree,
and this is where it has led me,
skirting the church yard walls, my stomach busy
making tucks, darts, pleats, hat-less, without
a winter coat or reinforcements of scarf, gloves.

On reaching the top of the hill I traced

the inscriptions on the war memorial,
leaned against it like a wishbone.
The dove pulled freely against the sky,
an ornamental stitch. I listened, hoping to hear
your playground voice catching on the wind.
 War Photographer
By Carol Ann Duffy

In his dark room he is finally alone

with spools of suffering set out in ordered rows.
The only light is red and softly glows,
as though this were a church and he
a priest preparing to intone a Mass.
Belfast. Beirut. Phnom Penh. All flesh is grass.

He has a job to do. Solutions slop in trays

beneath his hands, which did not tremble then
though seem to now. Rural England. Home again
to ordinary pain which simple weather can dispel,
to fields which don’t explode beneath the feet
of running children in a nightmare heat.

Something is happening. A stranger’s features

faintly start to twist before his eyes,
a half-formed ghost. He remembers the cries
of this man’s wife, how he sought approval
without words to do what someone must
and how the blood stained into foreign dust.

A hundred agonies in black and white

from which his editor will pick out five or six
for Sunday’s supplement. The reader’s eyeballs prick
with tears between the bath and pre-lunch beers.
From the aeroplane he stares impassively at where
he earns his living and they do not care.
 Tissue
By Imtiaz Dharker

Paper that lets the light with living tissue, raise a structure
shine through, this never meant to last,
is what could alter things. of paper smoothed and stroked
Paper thinned by age or touching, and thinned to be transparent,

the kind you find in well-used books, turned into your skin.
the back of the Koran, where a hand
has written in the names and histories,
who was born to whom,

the height and weight, who

died where and how, on which sepia date,
pages smoothed and stroked and turned
transparent with attention.

If buildings were paper, I might

feel their drift, see how easily
they fall away on a sigh, a shift
in the direction of the wind.

Maps too. The sun shines through

their borderlines, the marks
that rivers make, roads,
railtracks, mountainfolds,

Fine slips from grocery shops

that say how much was sold
and what was paid by credit card
might fly our lives like paper kites.

An architect could use all this,

place layer over layer, luminous
script over numbers over line,
and never wish to build again with brick

or block, but let the daylight break

through capitals and monoliths,
through the shapes that pride can make,
find a way to trace a grand design
 The Émigrée
By Carol Rumens

There once was a country… I left it as a child

but my memory of it is sunlight-clear
for it seems I never saw it in that November
which, I am told, comes to the mildest city.
The worst news I receive of it cannot break
my original view, the bright, filled paperweight.
It may be at war, it may be sick with tyrants,
but I am branded by an impression of sunlight.

The white streets of that city, the graceful slopes

glow even clearer as time rolls its tanks
and the frontiers rise between us, close like waves.
That child’s vocabulary I carried here
like a hollow doll, opens and spills a grammar.
Soon I shall have every coloured molecule of it.
It may by now be a lie, banned by the state
but I can’t get it off my tongue. It tastes of sunlight.

I have no passport, there’s no way back at all

but my city comes to me in its own white plane.
It lies down in front of me, docile as paper;
I comb its hair and love its shining eyes.
My city takes me dancing through the city
of walls. They accuse me of absence, they circle me.
They accuse me of being dark in their free city.
My city hides behind me. They mutter death,
and my shadow falls as evidence of sunlight.
 Kamikaze
By Beatrice Garland – yes, grandfather’s boat – safe
to the shore, salt-sodden, awash
Her father embarked at sunrise with cloud-marked
with a flask of water, a samurai sword mackerel,black crabs, feathery
in the cockpit, a shaven head prawns,
full of powerful incantations the loose silver of whitebait and
and enough fuel for a one-way once
journey into history a tuna, the dark prince, muscular,
dangerous.
but half way there, she thought,
recounting it later to her children, And though he came back
he must have looked far down my mother never spoke again
at the little fishing boats in his presence, nor did she meet
strung out like bunting his eyes
on a green-blue translucent sea and the neighbours too, they
treated him
and beneath them, arcing in swathes
as though he no longer existed,
like a huge flag waved first one way
only we children still chattered
then the other in a figure of eight,
and laughed
the dark shoals of fishes
flashing silver as their bellies till gradually we too learned
swivelled towards the sun to be silent, to live as though
he had never returned, that this
and remembered how he
was no longer the father we
and his brothers waiting on the shore
loved.
built cairns of pearl-grey pebbles
And sometimes, she said, he must
to see whose withstood longest
have wondered
the turbulent inrush of breakers
which had been the better way to
bringing their father’s boat safe
die.
 Checking Out Me History
By John Agard Nanny
See-far woman
Dem tell me of mountain dream
Dem tell me fire-woman struggle
Wha dem want to tell me hopeful stream
to freedom river
Bandage up me eye with me own history
Blind me to my own identity Dem tell me bout Lord Nelson
and Waterloo
Dem tell me bout 1066 and all dat but dem never tell me bout Shaka
dem tell me bout Dick Whittington and he cat de great Zulu
But Touissant L'Ouverture Dem tell me bout Columbus and
no dem never tell me bout dat 1492
but what happen to de Caribs and
Toussaint de Arawaks too
a slave
with vision Dem tell me bout Florence
lick back Nightingale and she lamp
Napoleon and how Robin Hood used to
battalion camp
and first Black Dem tell me bout ole King Cole
Republic born was a merry ole soul
Toussaint de thorn but dem never tell me bout Mary
to de French Seacole
Toussaint de beacon
of de Haitian Revolution From Jamaica
she travel far
Dem tell me bout de man who discover de balloon to the Crimean War
and de cow who jump over de moon she volunteer to go
Dem tell me bout de dish run away with de spoon and even when de British said no
but dem never tell me bout Nanny de maroon she still brave the Russian snow
a healing star
among the wounded
a yellow sunrise
to the dying

Dem tell me
Dem tell me wha dem want to tell
me
But now I checking out me own
history
I carving out me identity