For those that are studying Cambridge IGCSE World Literature 0408 course, here is a list of all poems from their syllabus analyzed for the years 2025, 2026, and 2027. If you are struggling to understand any of the terms used in our analysis, explore our literary term glossary.
Please feel free to skip to the poem most relevant to you and if you want a poem to be analyzed that you cannot find on the site, too, feel free to contact us.
We also welcome comments on all of our poetry analyses and articles. If you have any questions about any of the poems at all, including the aforementioned below, please feel free to comment, and you will be responded to by a poetry expert.
Cambridge IGCSE World Literature 0408 Poems (2025-27)
Set texts for examination in 2025
A selection from Songs of Ourselves (Cambridge International Examinations Anthology of Poetry in English) Volume 2. The following 14 poems from Part 2: Birds, Beasts and the Weather:
- Judith Wright – Australia 1970 [PDF Guide]
- Thomas Carew – The Spring [PDF Guide]
- Philip Larkin – Coming [PDF Guide]
- Thomas Hardy – The Darkling Thrush [PDF Guide]
- Ruth Pitter – Stormcock in Elder [PDF Guide]
- Stevie Smith – Parrot [PDF Guide]
- Vivian Smith – At the Parrot House, Taronga Park [PDF Guide]
- Alice Oswald – Eel Tail [PDF Guide]
- Peter Reading – Cetacean [PDF Guide]
- David Constantine – Watching for Dolphins [PDF Guide]
- William Barnes – The Storm-Wind [PDF Guide]
- Kofi Awoonor – The Sea Eats the Land at Home [PDF Guide]
- Allen Curnow – You Will Know When You Get There [PDF Guide]
- Robinson Jeffers – The Stars Go Over the Lonely Ocean [PDF Guide]
Set texts for examination in 2026
A selection from Songs of Ourselves (Cambridge International Examinations Anthology of Poetry in English). The following 14 poems from Part 5: Poems from the 19th and 20th
Centuries (III):
- Frances Cornford – Childhood [PDF Guide]
- Emily Dickinson – Because I Could Not Stop for Death [PDF Guide]
- Elizabeth Bishop – One Art [PDF Guide]
- Alfred Lord Tennyson – Song: Tears, Idle Tears [PDF Guide]
- Stephen Spender – My Parents [PDF Guide]
- Fleur Adcock – For Heidi with Blue Hair [PDF Guide]
- Grace Nichols – Praise Song for my Mother [PDF Guide]
- Seamus Heaney – Follower [PDF Guide]
- Charlotte Mew – The Trees are Down [PDF Guide]
- Philip Larkin – The Trees [PDF Guide]
- Ruth Pitter – Time’s Fool [PDF Guide]
- Charlotte Mew – A Quoi Bon Dire [PDF Guide]
- Robert Browning – Meeting at Night [PDF Guide]
- A E Housman – Because I Liked You Better [PDF Guide]
Set texts for examination in 2027
A selection from Songs of Ourselves (Cambridge International Examinations Anthology of Poetry in English). The following 14 poems from Part 5: Poems from the 19th and 20th
Centuries (III):
- Frances Cornford – Childhood [PDF Guide]
- Emily Dickinson – Because I Could Not Stop for Death [PDF Guide]
- Elizabeth Bishop – One Art [PDF Guide]
- Alfred Lord Tennyson – Song: Tears, Idle Tears [PDF Guide]
- Stephen Spender – My Parents [PDF Guide]
- Fleur Adcock – For Heidi with Blue Hair [PDF Guide]
- Grace Nichols – Praise Song for my Mother [PDF Guide]
- Seamus Heaney – Follower [PDF Guide]
- Charlotte Mew – The Trees are Down [PDF Guide]
- Philip Larkin – The Trees [PDF Guide]
- Ruth Pitter – Time’s Fool [PDF Guide]
- Charlotte Mew – A Quoi Bon Dire [PDF Guide]
- Robert Browning – Meeting at Night [PDF Guide]
- A E Housman – Because I Liked You Better [PDF Guide]
