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O-LevelLiterature in EnglishPoetryMay/June 2012Paper 1 Q1325 Marks

Read this extract from Ulysses, and then answer the question that follows it: It little profits that an idle king, By this still hearth, among these barren crags, Match'd with an agèd wife, I mete and dole Unequal laws unto a savage race, That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me. 5 I cannot rest from travel; I will drink Life to the lees. All times I have enjoyed Greatly, have suffered greatly, both with those That loved me, and alone; on shore, and when Through scudding drifts the rainy Hyades 10 Vext the dim sea: I am become a name For always roaming with a hungry heart; Much have I seen and known, – cities of men And manners, climates, councils, governments, Myself not least, but honoured of them all; 15 And drunk delight of battle with my peers, Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy. I am a part of all that I have met; Yet all experience is an arch wherethrough Gleams that untravelled world whose margin fades 20 For ever and for ever when I move. How dull it is to pause, to make an end, To rust unburnished, not to shine in use! As though to breathe were life! Life piled on life Were all too little, and of one to me 25 Little remains; but every hour is saved From that eternal silence, something more, A bringer of new things; and vile it were For some three suns to store and hoard myself, And this grey spirit yearning in desire 30 To follow knowledge like a sinking star, Beyond the utmost bound of human thought.

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The correct answer is . This question tests the candidate's understanding of poetry within the Literature in Englishsyllabus. The examiner's mark scheme requires...

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About This O-Level Literature in English Question

This structured question appeared in the Cambridge O-Level Literature in English (2010) May/June 2012 examination, Paper 1 Variant 1. It tests the topic of Poetry and is worth 25 marks.

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