英文诗歌精读

    （5，6年级）

英文诗歌国内孩子很少接触。熟悉诗歌阅读有一个很长的过程。习得/半习得，原版阅读路子的孩子，诗歌精读应该是英文学习不可分割的一部分。很多地方私立高中入学都要考察诗歌阅读，美国私校 SSAT 考试，澳洲顶级私校入学考试AESA（多谢悠悠妈告知）都要考察诗歌。

这首诗讲了一个故事。孩子们要能够用5句话 summarize 这个故事，评论整首诗的语气，找出Rhyme scheme, 并且能说出这个 rhyme scheme 起什么作用。

Death of an Aircraft

Charles Causley

One day in our village in the month of July                                         1

An aeroplane sank from the sea of the sky,

White as a whale it smashed on the shore

Bleeding oil and petrol all over the floor.

 

The Germans advanced in the vertical heat                                         5

To save the dead plane from the people of Crete,

And round the glass wreck in a circus of snow

Set seven mechanical sentries to go.

 

Seven stalking spiders about the sharp sun                                         

Clicking like clockwork and each with a gun                                       10

But at ‘Come to the Cookhouse’ they all wheeled about

And sat down to sausages and sauerkraut.

 

Down from the mountain burning so brown

Wriggled three heroes from Kastelo town

Deep in the sand they silently sank                                                      15

And each struck a match for a petrol tank.

 

Up went the plane in a feather of fire

As the bubbling boys began to retire

And, grey in the guardhouse, seven Berliners

Lost their stripes as well as their dinners.                                             20

 

Down in the village, at murder-stations,

The Germans fell in friends and relations:

But not a Kastelian snapped an eye

As he spat in the eye and prepared to die.

 

Not a Kastelian whispered a word                                           25

Dressed with the dust to be massacred,

And squinted up in the sky with a frown

As three bubbly boys came walking down.

 

One was sent to the county gaol

Too young for bullets if not for bail,                                       30

But the other two were in prime condition

To take on a load of ammunition.

 

In Archonti they stood in the weather

Naked, hungry, chained together;

Stark as the stones in the market-place,                                               35

Under the eyes of the populace.

 

Their irons unlocked as their naked hearts

They faced the squad and their funeral –carts.

The Captain cried, ‘Before you’re away

Is there any last word you’d like to say?’                                            40

 

‘I want no words’, said one ‘with my lead,

Only some water to cool my head’.

‘Water’, the other said ‘ ‘s all very fine

But I’ll be taking a glass of wine.

 

‘A glass of wine for the afternoon                                           45

With permission to sing a signature tune!’

And he ran the raki down this throat

And took a deep breath for the leading note.

 

But before the squad could shoot or stay

Like the impala he leapt away                                                 50

Over the rifles, under the biers,

The bullets rattling round his ears.

 

‘Run’, they cried to the boy of stone

Who now stood there in the street alone,

But, ‘Rather than bring revenge on your head                         55

It is better for me to die’, he said.

 

The soldiers turned their machine guns round

And shot him down with a dreadful sound

Scrubbed his face with perpetual dark

And rubbed it out like a pencil mark.                                      60

 

But his comrade slept in the olive tree

And sailed by night on the gnawing sea,

The soldier’s silver shilling earned,

And, armed like an archangel, returned.