Text

Sonnet 116: Let me not to the marriage of true minds

By William Shakespeare

[1] Let me not to the marriage of true minds
[2] Admit impediments; love is not love
[3] Which alters when it alteration finds,
[4] Or bends with the remover to remove.
[5] O no, it is an ever-fixèd mark
[6] That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
[7] It is the star to every wandering bark,
[8] Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
[9] Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
[10] Within his bending sickle's compass come;
[11] Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
[12] But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
[13] If this be error and upon me proved,
[14] I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

Notes

Source: Pearson Edexcel International GCSE English Anthology, Issue 8, February 2026, printed page 59.

Text

My Last Duchess

By Robert Browning

Ferrara

[1] That’s my last Duchess painted on the wall,
[2] Looking as if she were alive. I call
[3] That piece a wonder, now: Frà Pandolf’s hands
[4] Worked busily a day, and there she stands.
[5] Will't please you sit and look at her? I said
[6] ‘Frà Pandolf’ by design, for never read
[7] Strangers like you that pictured countenance,
[8] The depth and passion of its earnest glance,
[9] But to myself they turned (since none puts by
[10] The curtain I have drawn for you, but I)
[11] And seemed as they would ask me, if they durst,
[12] How such a glance came there; so, not the first
[13] Are you to turn and ask thus. Sir, ’twas not
[14] Her husband’s presence only, called that spot
[15] Of joy into the Duchess’ cheek: perhaps
[16] Frà Pandolf chanced to say, ‘Her mantle laps
[17] Over my lady’s wrist too much,’ or ‘Paint
[18] Must never hope to reproduce the faint
[19] Half-flush that dies along her throat’: such stuff
[20] Was courtesy, she thought, and cause enough
[21] For calling up that spot of joy. She had
[22] A heart – how shall I say? – too soon made glad,
[23] Too easily impressed; she liked whate’er
[24] She looked on, and her looks went everywhere.
[25] Sir, ’twas all one! My favour at her breast,
[26] The dropping of the daylight in the West,
[27] The bough of cherries some officious fool
[28] Broke in the orchard for her, the white mule
[29] She rode with round the terrace – all and each
[30] Would draw from her alike the approving speech,
[31] Or blush, at least. She thanked men, – good! but thanked
[32] Somehow – I know not how – as if she ranked
[33] My gift of a nine-hundred-years-old name
[34] With anybody’s gift. Who’d stoop to blame
[35] This sort of trifling? Even had you skill
[36] In speech – (which I have not) – to make your will
[37] Quite clear to such an one, and say, ‘Just this
[38] Or that in you disgusts me; here you miss,
[39] Or there exceed the mark’ – and if she let
[40] Herself be lessoned so, nor plainly set
[41] Her wits to yours, forsooth, and made excuse,
[42] – E’en then would be some stooping; and I choose
[43] Never to stoop. Oh, sir, she smiled, no doubt,
[44] Whene’er I passed her; but who passed without
[45] Much the same smile? This grew; I gave commands;
[46] Then all smiles stopped together. There she stands
[47] As if alive. Will't please you rise? We’ll meet
[48] The company below, then. I repeat,
[49] The Count your master’s known munificence
[50] Is ample warrant that no just pretence
[51] Of mine for dowry will be disallowed;
[52] Though his fair daughter’s self, as I avowed
[53] At starting, is my object. Nay, we’ll go
[54] Together down, sir. Notice Neptune, though,
[55] Taming a sea-horse, thought a rarity,
[56] Which Claus of Innsbruck cast in bronze for me!

Notes

Source: Pearson Edexcel International GCSE English Anthology, Issue 8, February 2026, printed pages 65–66.

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La Belle Dame sans Merci

By John Keats

                    I
[2] O what can ail thee, knight-at-arms,
[3]      Alone and palely loitering?
[4] The sedge has withered from the lake,
[5]      And no birds sing.

                    II
[7] O what can ail thee, knight-at-arms,
[8]      So haggard and so woe-begone?
[9] The squirrel’s granary is full,
[10]      And the harvest’s done.

                    III
[12] I see a lily on thy brow,
[13]      With anguish moist and fever-dew,
[14] And on thy cheeks a fading rose
[15]      Fast withereth too.

                    IV
[17] I met a lady in the meads,
[18]      Full beautiful — a faery’s child,
[19] Her hair was long, her foot was light,
[20]      And her eyes were wild.

                    V
[22] I made a garland for her head,
[23]      And bracelets too, and fragrant zone;
[24] She looked at me as she did love,
[25]      And made sweet moan.

                    VI
[27] I set her on my pacing steed,
[28]      And nothing else saw all day long,
[29] For sidelong would she bend, and sing
[30]      A faery’s song.

                    VII
[32] She found me roots of relish sweet,
[33]      And honey wild, and manna¹-dew,
[34] And sure in language strange she said —
[35]       ‘I love thee true’.

                    VIII
[37] She took me to her elfin grot,
[38]      And there she wept and sighed full sore,
[39] And there I shut her wild wild eyes
[40]      With kisses four.

                    IX
[42] And there she lullèd me asleep
[43]      And there I dreamed — Ah! woe betide! —
[44] The latest dream I ever dreamt
[45]      On the cold hill side.
                    X
[47] I saw pale kings, and princes too,
[48]      Pale warriors, death-pale were they all;
[49] They cried — ‘La Belle Dame sans Merci
[50]      Thee hath in thrall!’

                    XI
[52] I saw their starved lips in the gloam,
[53]      With horrid warning gapèd wide,
[54] And I awoke and found me here,
[55]      On the cold hill’s side.

                    XII
[57] And this is why I sojourn here
[58]      Alone and palely loitering,
[59] Though the sedge is withered from the lake,
[60]      And no birds sing.

Notes

Source: Pearson Edexcel International GCSE English Anthology, Issue 8, February 2026, printed pages 60–61. Roman numerals are stanza labels. Pearson’s printed count includes those labels; verse numbers retain its identities (first verse line 2).
1 manna: food from heaven

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Prayer Before Birth

By Louis MacNeice

[1] I am not yet born; O hear me.
[2] Let not the bloodsucking bat or the rat or the stoat or the
[3]      club-footed ghoul come near me.

[4] I am not yet born, console me.
[5] I fear that the human race may with tall walls wall me,
[6]      with strong drugs dope me, with wise lies lure me,
[7]           on black racks rack me, in blood-baths roll me.

[8] I am not yet born; provide me
[9] With water to dandle me, grass to grow for me, trees to talk
[10]      to me, sky to sing to me, birds and a white light
[11]           in the back of my mind to guide me.

[12] I am not yet born; forgive me
[13] For the sins that in me the world shall commit, my words
[14]      when they speak me, my thoughts when they think me,
[15]           my treason engendered by traitors beyond me,
[16]                my life when they murder by means of my
[17]                     hands, my death when they live me.

[18] I am not yet born; rehearse me
[19] In the parts I must play and the cues I must take when
[20]      old men lecture me, bureaucrats hector me, mountains
[21]           frown at me, lovers laugh at me, the white
[22]                waves call me to folly and the desert calls
[23]                     me to doom and the beggar refuses
[24]                          my gift and my children curse me.

[25] I am not yet born; O hear me,
[26] Let not the man who is beast or who thinks he is God
[27]      come near me.

[28] I am not yet born; O fill me
[29] With strength against those who would freeze my
[30]      humanity, would dragoon me into a lethal automaton,
[31]           would make me a cog in a machine, a thing with
[32]                one face, a thing, and against all those
[33]                     who would dissipate my entirety, would
[34]                          blow me like thistledown hither and
[35]                               thither or hither and thither
[36]                                    like water held in the
[37]                                         hands would spill me.

[38] Let them not make me a stone and let them not spill me.
[39] Otherwise kill me.

Notes

Source: Pearson Edexcel International GCSE English Anthology, Issue 8, February 2026, printed page 52.

Text

Half-caste

By John Agard

[1] Excuse me
[2] standing on one leg
[3] I’m half-caste

[4] Explain yuself
[5] wha yu mean
[6] when yu say half-caste
[7] yu mean when picasso
[8] mix red an green
[9] is a half-caste canvas/
[10] explain yuself
[11] wha yu mean
[12] when yu say half-caste
[13] yu mean when light an shadow
[14] mix in de sky
[15] is a half-caste weather/
[16] well in dat case
[17] england weather
[18] nearly always half-caste
[19] in fact some o dem cloud
[20] half-caste till dem overcast
[21] so spiteful dem dont want de sun pass
[22] ah rass/
[23] explain yuself
[24] wha yu mean
[25] when yu say half-caste
[26] yu mean when tchaikovsky
[27] sit down at dah piano
[28] an mix a black key
[29] wid a white key
[30] is a half-caste symphony/

[31] Explain yuself
[32] wha yu mean
[33] Ah listening to yu wid de keen
[34] half of mih ear
[35] Ah lookin at yu wid de keen
[36] half of mih eye
[37] and when I’m introduced to yu
[38] I’m sure you’ll understand
[39] why I offer yu half-a-hand
[40] an when I sleep at night
[41] I close half-a-eye
[42] consequently when I dream
[43] I dream half-a-dream
[44] an when moon begin to glow
[45] I half-caste human being
[46] cast half-a-shadow
[47] but yu must come back tomorrow
[49] wid de whole of yu eye
[50] an de whole of yu ear
[51] an de whole of yu mind

[52] an I will tell yu
[53] de other half
[54] of my story

Notes

Source: Pearson Edexcel International GCSE English Anthology, Issue 8, February 2026, printed pages 67–68. Printed numbering jumps from 47 to 49 across the page break; no verse line has been omitted.

Text

War Photographer

By Carol Ann Duffy

[1] In his darkroom he is finally alone
[2] with spools of suffering set out in ordered rows.
[3] The only light is red and softly glows,
[4] as though this were a church and he
[5] a priest preparing to intone a Mass¹.
[6] Belfast. Beirut. Phnom Penh. All flesh is grass.

[7] He has a job to do. Solutions slop in trays
[8] beneath his hands, which did not tremble then
[9] though seem to now. Rural England. Home again
[10] to ordinary pain which simple weather can dispel,
[11] to fields which don’t explode beneath the feet
[12] of running children in a nightmare heat.

[13] Something is happening. A stranger’s features
[14] faintly start to twist before his eyes,
[15] a half-formed ghost. He remembers the cries
[16] of this man’s wife, how he sought approval
[17] without words to do what someone must
[18] and how the blood stained into foreign dust.

[19] A hundred agonies in black and white
[20] from which his editor will pick out five or six
[21] for Sunday’s supplement². The reader’s eyeballs prick
[22] with tears between the bath and pre-lunch beers.
[23] From the aeroplane he stares impassively at where
[24] he earns his living and they do not care.

Notes

Source: Pearson Edexcel International GCSE English Anthology, Issue 8, February 2026, printed page 63.
1 mass: a religious service
2 Sunday’s supplement: a regular additional section placed in a Sunday
newspaper

Text

Search For My Tongue

By Sujata Bhatt

[1] You ask me what I mean
[2] by saying I have lost my tongue.
[3] I ask you, what would you do
[4] if you had two tongues in your mouth,
[5] and lost the first one, the mother tongue,
[6] and could not really know the other,
[7] the foreign tongue.
[8] You could not use them both together
[9] even if you thought that way.
[10] And if you lived in a place you had to
[11] speak a foreign tongue,
[12] your mother tongue would rot,
[13] rot and die in your mouth
[14] until you had to spit it out.
[15] I thought I spit it out
[16] but overnight while I dream,

[17] મને હતું કે આખી જીભ આખી ભાષા,
[18] (munay hutoo kay aakhee jeebh aakhee bhasha)
[19] મેં થૂંકી નાખી છે.
[20] (may thoonky nakhi chay)
[21] પરંતુ રાત્રે સ્વપ્નમાં મારી ભાષા પાછી આવે છે.
[22] (parantoo rattray svupnama mari bhasha pachi aavay chay)
[23] ફૂલની જેમ મારી ભાષા મારી જીભ.
[24] (foolnee jaim mari bhasha mari jeebh)
[25] મોઢામાં ખીલે છે.
[26] (modhama kheelay chay)
[27] ફૂલની જેમ મારી ભાષા મારી જીભ.
[28] (fullnee jaim mari bhasha mari jeebh)
[29] મોઢામાં પાકે છે.
[30] (modhama pakay chay)
[31] it grows back, a stump of a shoot
[32] grows longer, grows moist, grows strong veins,
[33] it ties the other tongue in knots,
[34] the bud opens, the bud opens in my mouth,
[35] it pushes the other tongue aside.
[36] Everytime I think I've forgotten,
[37] I think I've lost the mother tongue,
[38] it blossoms out of my mouth.

Notes

Source: Pearson Edexcel International GCSE English Anthology, Issue 8, February 2026, printed pages 54–55. The Gujarati script and the parenthesised transliteration alternate as in the printed poem.

Text

If—

By Rudyard Kipling

[1] If you can keep your head when all about you
[2]     Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
[3] If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
[4]     But make allowance for their doubting too;
[5] If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
[6]     Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
[7] Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
[8]     And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

[9] If you can dream — and not make dreams your master;
[10]     If you can think — and not make thoughts your aim;
[11] If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
[12]     And treat those two impostors just the same;
[13] If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
[14]     Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
[15] Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
[16]     And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:

[17] If you can make one heap of all your winnings
[18]     And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
[19] And lose, and start again at your beginnings
[20]     And never breathe a word about your loss;
[21] If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
[22]     To serve your turn long after they are gone,
[23] And so hold on when there is nothing in you
[24]     Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’

[25] If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
[26]     Or walk with Kings — nor lose the common touch,
[27] If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
[28]     If all men count with you, but none too much;
[29] If you can fill the unforgiving minute
[30]     With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
[31] Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
[32]     And — which is more — you’ll be a Man, my son!

Notes

Source: Pearson Edexcel International GCSE English Anthology, Issue 8, February 2026, printed page 51.

Text

Remember

By Christina Rossetti

[1] Remember me when I am gone away,
[2] Gone far away into the silent land;
[3]      When you can no more hold me by the hand,
[4] Nor I half turn to go yet turning stay.
[5] Remember me when no more day by day
[6]      You tell me of our future that you planned:
[7]      Only remember me; you understand
[8] It will be late to counsel then or pray.
[9] Yet if you should forget me for a while
[10]      And afterwards remember, do not grieve:
[11]      For if the darkness and corruption leave
[12]      A vestige of the thoughts that once I had,
[13] Better by far you should forget and smile
[14]      Than that you should remember and be sad.

Notes

Source: Pearson Edexcel International GCSE English Anthology, Issue 8, February 2026, printed page 70.

Text

Do not go gentle into that good night

By Dylan Thomas

[1] Do not go gentle into that good night,
[2] Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
[3] Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

[4] Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
[5] Because their words had forked no lightning they
[6] Do not go gentle into that good night.

[7] Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
[8] Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
[9] Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

[10] Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
[11] And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
[12] Do not go gentle into that good night.

[13] Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
[14] Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
[15] Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

[16] And you, my father, there on the sad height,
[17] Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
[18] Do not go gentle into that good night.
[19] Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Notes

Source: Pearson Edexcel International GCSE English Anthology, Issue 8, February 2026, printed page 69.

Text

Half-past Two

By U A Fanthorpe

[1] Once upon a schooltime
[2] He did Something Very Wrong
[3] (I forget what it was).

[4] And She said he’d done
[5] Something Very Wrong, and must
[6] Stay in the school-room till half-past two.

[7] (Being cross, she’d forgotten
[8] She hadn’t taught him Time.
[9] He was too scared at being wicked to remind her.)

[10] He knew a lot of time: he knew
[11] Gettinguptime, timeyouwereofftime,
[12] Timetogohomenowtime, TVtime,

[13] Timeformykisstime (that was Grantime).
[14] All the important times he knew,
[15] But not half-past two.

[16] He knew the clockface, the little eyes
[17] And two long legs for walking,
[18] But he couldn’t click its language,

[19] So he waited, beyond onceupona,
[20] Out of reach of all the timefors,
[21] And knew he’d escaped for ever

[22] Into the smell of old chrysanthemums on Her desk,
[23] Into the silent noise his hangnail made,
[24] Into the air outside the window, into ever.

[25] And then, My goodness, she said,
[26] Scuttling in, I forgot all about you.
[27] Run along or you’ll be late.

[28] So she slotted him back into schooltime,
[29] And he got home in time for teatime,
[30] Nexttime, notimeforthatnowtime,

[31] But he never forgot how once by not knowing time,
[32] He escaped into the clockless land for ever,
[33] Where time hides tick-less waiting to be born.

Notes

Source: Pearson Edexcel International GCSE English Anthology, Issue 8, February 2026, printed page 56.

Text

Piano

By D H Lawrence

[1] Softly, in the dusk, a woman is singing to me;
[2] Taking me back down the vista of years, till I see
[3] A child sitting under the piano, in the boom of the tingling strings
[4] And pressing the small, poised feet of a mother who smiles as she sings.

[5] In spite of myself, the insidious mastery of song
[6] Betrays me back, till the heart of me weeps to belong
[7] To the old Sunday evenings at home, with winter outside
[8] And hymns in the cosy parlour, the tinkling piano our guide.

[9] So now it is vain for the singer to burst into clamour
[10] With the great black piano appassionato. The glamour
[11] Of childish days is upon me, my manhood is cast
[12] Down in the flood of remembrance, I weep like a child for the past.

Notes

Source: Pearson Edexcel International GCSE English Anthology, Issue 8, February 2026, printed page 57.

Text

Hide and Seek

By Vernon Scannell

[1] Call out. Call loud: ‘I’m ready! Come and find me!’
[2] The sacks in the toolshed smell like the seaside.
[3] They’ll never find you in this salty dark,
[4] But be careful that your feet aren’t sticking out.
[5] Wiser not to risk another shout.
[6] The floor is cold. They’ll probably be searching
[7] The bushes near the swing. Whatever happens
[8] You mustn’t sneeze when they come prowling in.
[9] And here they are, whispering at the door;
[10] You’ve never heard them sound so hushed before.
[11] Don’t breathe. Don’t move. Stay dumb. Hide in your blindness.
[12] They’re moving closer, someone stumbles, mutters;
[13] Their words and laughter scuffle, and they’re gone.
[14] But don’t come out just yet; they’ll try the lane
[15] And then the greenhouse and back here again.
[16] They must be thinking that you’re very clever,
[17] Getting more puzzled as they search all over.
[18] It seems a long time since they went away.
[19] Your legs are stiff, the cold bites through your coat;
[20] The dark damp smell of sand moves in your throat.
[21] It’s time to let them know that you’re the winner.
[22] Push off the sacks. Uncurl and stretch. That’s better!
[23] Out of the shed and call to them: ‘I’ve won!
[24] Here I am! Come and own up I’ve caught you!’
[25] The darkening garden watches. Nothing stirs.
[26] The bushes hold their breath; the sun is gone.
[27] Yes, here you are. But where are they who sought you?

Notes

Source: Pearson Edexcel International GCSE English Anthology, Issue 8, February 2026, printed page 58.

Text

Poem at Thirty-Nine

By Alice Walker

[1] How I miss my father.
[2] I wish he had not been
[3] so tired
[4] when I was
[5] born.

[6] Writing deposit slips and checks
[7] I think of him.
[8] He taught me how.
[9] This is the form,
[10] he must have said:
[11] the way it is done.
[12] I learned to see
[13] bits of paper
[14] as a way
[15] to escape
[16] the life he knew
[17] and even in high school
[18] had a savings
[19] account.

[20] He taught me
[21] that telling the truth
[22] did not always mean
[23] a beating;
[24] though many of my truths
[25] must have grieved him
[26] before the end.

[27] How I miss my father!
[28] He cooked like a person
[29] dancing
[30] in a yoga meditation
[31] and craved the voluptuous
[32] sharing
[33] of good food.

[34] Now I look and cook just like him:
[35] my brain light;
[36] tossing this and that
[37] into the pot;
[38] seasoning none of my life
[39] the same way twice; happy to feed
[40] whoever strays my way.

[41] He would have grown
[42] to admire
[43] the woman I’ve become:
[44] cooking, writing, chopping wood,
[45] staring into the fire.

Notes

Source: Pearson Edexcel International GCSE English Anthology, Issue 8, February 2026, printed page 62.

Text

Blessing

By Imtiaz Dharker

[1] The skin cracks like a pod.
[2] There never is enough water.

[3] Imagine the drip of it,
[4] the small splash, echo
[5] in a tin mug,
[6] the voice of a kindly god.

[7] Sometimes, the sudden rush
[8] of fortune. The municipal pipe bursts,
[9] silver crashes to the ground
[10] and the flow has found
[11] a roar of tongues. From the huts,
[12] a congregation: every man woman
[13] child for streets around
[14] butts in, with pots,
[15] brass, copper, aluminium,
[16] plastic buckets,
[17] frantic hands,

[18] and naked children
[19] screaming in the liquid sun,
[20] their highlights polished to perfection,
[21] flashing light,
[22] as the blessing sings
[23] over their small bones.

Notes

Source: Pearson Edexcel International GCSE English Anthology, Issue 8, February 2026, printed page 53.

Text

The Tyger

By William Blake

[1] Tyger, Tyger, burning bright,
[2] In the forests of the night:
[3] What immortal hand or eye,
[4] Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

[5] In what distant deeps or skies
[6] Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
[7] On what wings dare he aspire?
[8] What the hand, dare seize the fire?

[9] And what shoulder, & what art,
[10] Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
[11] And when thy heart began to beat,
[12] What dread hand? & what dread feet?

[13] What the hammer? what the chain,
[14] In what furnace was thy brain?
[15] What the anvil? what dread grasp,
[16] Dare its deadly terrors clasp!

[17] When the stars threw down their spears
[18] And water'd heaven with their tears:
[19] Did he smile his work to see?
[20] Did he who made the Lamb make thee?¹

[21] Tyger, Tyger burning bright,
[22] In the forests of the night:
[23] What immortal hand or eye,
[24] Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

Notes

Source: Pearson Edexcel International GCSE English Anthology, Issue 8, February 2026, printed page 64.
1 Did he who made the Lamb make thee?: God