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The Copy Book

A Library of History and Literature in English

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1609

The Goose with the Golden Egg

Based on a fable by Aesop of Samos

Don’t get greedy when things are going well.

THE story of a man whose impatience and greed cost him everything.

Posted February 17 2015

1610

‘I Remember’

By Thomas Hood

A poem of nostalgia tinged with regret.

Thomas Hood is better known for his humorous verse; this is a poignant little reflection on childhood innocence lost.

Posted January 17 2015

1611

The Music of Silence

By Samuel Taylor Coleridge

In Coleridge’s epic poem, the Ancient Mariner, amid the horrors of a ship of dead men, sees a sight both beautiful and surreal.

The Ancient Mariner has wantonly killed an albatross, and brought death and destruction on his ship. Surrounded now by the dead bodies of the crew, a new and ghostly sight meets his eyes.

Posted January 17 2015

1612

November

By Thomas Hood

Humorist Thomas Hood obviously didn’t like to see the nights drawing in

November weather isn’t always as miserable as Hood makes out. But the sun doesn’t rise until half-past seven in the morning, and it sets just after four o’clock, so the days are a little short.

Posted January 17 2015

1613

Ozymandias

By Percy Bysshe Shelley

The glory of political power soon passes away.

Percy Bysshe Shelley wrote this poem in friendly competition with fellow-poet Horace Smith. Ozymandias is an ancient Greek name for Egyptian Pharaoh Ramesses II (1279-1213 BC).

Posted January 17 2015

1614

Unsung Heroes

By Thomas Gray

The poet reflects on the obscure lives that most of us lead.

We find in a churchyard people who had the same talents as the great figures of English history and poetry, but not their chance to achieve fame.

Posted January 17 2015

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Music Video Alexander Borodin: Petite Suite: VI. Rêverie

Posted Yesterday

Composition Make up sentences using these phrases, making sure you put plenty of action in.

Posted Yesterday • Think and Speak

Rhymes Suggest words that rhyme with ‘love’.

Posted January 13 • Think and Speak

The Abuse of Literacy Reading and writing should have taught the people more than name-calling and how to manipulate opinion.

Posted January 13 • The Copy Book

Among Old Friends ‘Alpha of the Plough’ hoped Sir Arthur Conan Doyle did not treat his old friends as he treated his favourite books.

Posted January 12 • The Copy Book

Music Video Orlando Gibbons: Thus Angels Sung

Posted January 12 • Comfortable Words

A Reckless Indifference to Life In eighteenth-century England, the death penalty was the solution to almost any crime.

Posted January 11 • The Copy Book

Music Video Sir Charles Villiers Stanford: Symphony No. 3 in F Minor, Op. 28 (Irish): II. Allegro molto vivace

Posted January 10

Vocabulary Express each of these phrases in a single word.

Posted January 10

Dear Anne Elliot Anne Thackeray saw something in Jane Austen’s heroines that she missed in their more modern sisters.

Posted January 4 • The Copy Book

The Three Bears The beginning of Robert Southey’s classic fairy tale.

Posted January 2 • The Copy Book

A Man Without a Price A Russian princess admitted defeat with a most gracious compliment.

Posted January 1 • The Copy Book

Music Video Henry Purcell: Rejoice in the Lord Alway (‘the Bell Anthem’)

Posted January 1

Homonyms Show that each of these words might mean different things to different people.

Posted January 1 • Think and Speak

Hair by Hair Governments must not use ‘the good of society’ as an excuse to run our lives.

Posted December 31 2024 • The Copy Book

Music Video William Byrd: The Bells

Posted December 31 2024

Hearken to the Solemn Voice A hymn looking to the coming of Christ in judgement, sung at the Wesleys’ New Year’s Eve watch-nights.

Posted December 30 2024 • Comfortable Words

One Last Look Edith Nesbit brings down the curtain on ‘The Railway Children’.

Posted December 30 2024 • The Copy Book

Rephrasing Cast Mr Perks’s words into good plain English.

Posted December 29 2024 • Think and Speak

The Illustrious Mourner In Russia, when a blind beggar is laid to rest even the Emperor knows for whom the bell tolls.

Posted December 29 2024 • The Copy Book