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O-LevelLiterature in EnglishPoetryMay/June 2010Paper 1 Q2225 Marks

JOHN KEATS: Poems Read these three stanzas from Ode to a Nightingale, and then answer the question that follows: 1 My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk, Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk: 'Tis not through envy of thy happy lot, But being too happy in thine happiness, That thou, light-winged Dryad of the trees, In some melodious plot Of beechen green, and shadows numberless, Singest of summer in full-throated ease. 5 10 2 O, for a draught of vintage! that hath been Cool'd a long age in the deep-delved earth, Tasting of Flora and the country green, Dance, and Provençal song, and sunburnt mirth! O for a beaker full of the warm South, Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene, With beaded bubbles winking at the brim, And purple-stained mouth; That I might drink, and leave the world unseen, And with thee fade away into the forest dim: 15 20 3 Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget What thou among the leaves hast never known, The weariness, the fever, and the fret Here, where men sit and hear each other groan; Where palsy shakes a few, sad, last gray hairs, Where youth grows pale, and spectre-thin, and dies; Where but to think is to be full of sorrow And leaden-eyed despairs, Where Beauty cannot keep her lustrous eyes, Or new Love pine at them beyond to-morrow. 25 30 How do Keats's words here vividly reveal his feelings to you?

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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 2010 examination, Paper 1 Variant 1. It tests the topic of Poetry and is worth 25 marks.

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